the individual. Karma alone survives the death of man. Rebirth is the corollary of Karma. Man is the child of Karma, for Karma transmigrates and makes man in its own image. From life to life Karma returns to the earth in the midst of the environment it has merited, now reaping the harvest and now sowing new crops, now treading its steps upward the spiral ascent and now sliding backward, now unburdening itself of its accummulated consequences and now encumbering itself with fresh attachments. Karma, thus, makes and moulds itself ever anew in every life from day to day and year to year, until the time that it has no harvest to reap and becomes devoid of desire and deeds, so that it wins liberation in Nirvana of peaceful repose. Life is a little link in the long chain of limitless lives. Salvation lies not in the escape from hell but from the whirlings of the wheel of life. What is feared is the new birth, for it brings its accompanying sorrows and sufferings. Life is a wayside inn where the wayfarer halts for some time while upon his protracted pilgrimage to Nirvana or the end of his earthly existence.
Jainism likewise teaches that Karma or actions elongate the chain of rebirths. The ideal of life, therefore, is to divest oneself of Karma. Actions should be performed without passion or attachment. Karma, thus born, lives but a momentary life and dies. The sooner is the Karma extinguished, the quicker follows the liberation from the trammels of existence. It is the life of renunciation accompanied by bodily mortification that enables man to free himself speedily from Karma. The soul that wins liberation lives its individual life of peace and rest in heaven for ever.
In common with the various schools of philosophy current at the time, the Gita propounds the theories of rebirth and Karma. Krishna undertakes to teach how one has to perform actions and yet to save oneself from falling into their imprisoning fetters.
Thus India creates altogether a new eschatological philosophy. Zoroastrianism, as we shall see, continues to believe in only one life upon earth and Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism hold the same view.
According to Judaism, Yahweh searches the hearts of men and women and reads their thoughts. He weighs their actions, rewards the good and punishes the evil. Reward and retribution are, however, meted out in this world. It is at the later period
