164 THE ARAB AL-BIRUNI ON HINDU RELIGION does not exist, and does not return into existence. But if you look more to your body than to your soul, and are in anxiety about its perishing, you must know that all that which is born dies, and that all that which dies returns into another existence. However, both life and death are not your concern. They are in the hands of God, from whom all things come and to whom they re- turn. " In the further course of conversa- tion Arjuna asks Vasudeva: " How did you dare thus to fight Brahma, Brahma who was be- BUDDHIST FUNERAL URN. fore the world was and before man was, whilst you are living among us as a being whose birth and age are known? ' : There- upon Vasudeva answered: " Externity (pre-existence) is common both to us and to him. How often have we lived together when I knew the times of our life and death, whilst they were concealed from you! When I desire to appear in order to do some good, I array myself in a body, since one cannot be with man except in a human shape." People tell a tale of a king, whose name I have forgotten, who ordered his people to bury his body, after his death, on a spot where never before had a
