Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments explains the religious concepts most central to Asian philosophy, religion, and society, presenting articles representative of contemporary understanding and practice. The contributors look not only at the understanding of karma and rebirth in modern India, but also in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Japan, and the Western world. This broad treatment underscores the fact that karma and rebirth have become part of the religious history and cultural fabric of the Western world. The collection is divided into three sections. Part I deals with figures and movements of the Hindu renaissance in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part II on Buddhism deals with Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese treatments of karma. Part III is devoted to the influence of karma and rebirth in the Western world through theosophy, new religious movements, and recent developments in psychology.

Karma, the law of cause and effect, of nature's retribution for lost harmony, and Rebirth, from which it is inseperable, have been described as the oldest doctrine in the world. In today's turmoil, an understanding of Karma is one of the foundations on which we can build a more reasonable world.

This book explores how multi-life stories served to construct, communicate, and challenge ideas about karma and rebirth within early South Asia.

Karma is perhaps the most famous concept in Indian philosophy, but this is the first comprehensive study of its various meanings and philosophical implications. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions offers a harmony of approach and an underlying set of methodological assumptions: a corpus of definitions of karma, a dialectic between abstract theory and historical explanation, and an awareness of logical oppositions in theories of karma. No “solution” to the paradox of karma is offered, but the volume as a whole presents a consistent and encompassing approach to the many different, often conflicting, Indian statements of the problem. Broad in scope and richly detailed, this book demonstrates the impossibility of speaking of “the theory of karma” and supplies the basis for further study. Exploring methodological issues arising in the study of a non-Western system of soteriology and rebirth, the contributors question the interaction of medical and philosophical models of the human body, the incorporation of philosophical theories into practical religions with which they are logically incompatible, and the problem of historical reconstruction of a complex theory of human life. This title is part of UC Press’s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.

With Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small scale indigenous societies of West Africa, Melanesia, and North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritiative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth.

Featuring over 1,200 topical entries arranged alphabetically, this encyclopedia provides diverse and detailed coverage of the related subjects of reincarnation and karma. Its in-depth examination ranges from ancient beliefs to those of the present, incorporating all relevant world cultures. A series of broad thematic entries cover foundational aspects while over a thousand highly focused entries deal with various societies and organizations which support the concepts of reincarnation and karma; specific religious groups, sects, and associations; key individuals both historic and modern; and related beliefs, concepts, and practices.

In-depth study of the concepts of rebirth, karma and the higher lines of karma. One of the best introductions to this area we have ever found. Index.

Contributed research papers presented at a seminar organized by the Dept. of Buddhist Studies, Delhi University.