The Round of Rebirth (Saṃsāra)
The beginningless wheel of birth and death — the predicament every path aims to end.
Saṃsāra is the wheel of worldly existence — the beginningless round of birth, death, and rebirth through which beings keep passing, life after life. Driven by past action and by ignorance of one's true nature, it is the condition liberation aims to end. Almost every Hindu school takes saṃsāra for granted as the predicament and treats its own path as the way out.
How it traveled
- UpadeśasāhasrīKālaḍi (Kaladi) · 710explains
- VivekacūḍāmaṇiŚṛṅgeri (Sringeri) · 1400explains
- Aṣṭāvakra-gītāKāśī (Varanasi) · 1450applies
Key passages(20)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
But those who worship Me, resigning all actions in Me, regarding Me as the Supreme Goal, meditating on Me with single-minded Yoga,—to these whose mind is set on Me, verily, I become ere long, O son of
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Reaching the highest perfection, and having attained Me, the great-souled ones are no more subject to re-birth—which is the home of pain, and ephemeral.
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Look back how it was with those who came before, look forward how it will be with those who come hereafter. A mortal ripens like corn, like corn he springs up again." (Nakiketas enters into the abode
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He makes all, he knows all, the self-caused, the knower , the time of time (destroyer of time), who assumes qualities and knows everything, the master of nature and of man , the lord of the three qual
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'But they who conquer the worlds (future states) by means of sacrifice, charity, and austerity, go to smoke, from smoke to night, from night to the decreasing half of the moon, from the decreasing hal
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He who has three times performed this Nâkiketa-rite and has been united with the three (father, mother, and teacher), and has performed the three duties (study, sacrifice, almsgiving) overcomes birth
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