Thread by @poonamdut

Does the oldest Vedic material suggest that reincarnation was the ancient view, or something ancestral like other nature-oriented religions?
#Reincarnation

As far as I know (which is very little) there is no explicit mention of reincarnation or Karma in the Rig Veda.

These ideas are first articulated in the Brahmanas and the latter sections of the Vedas known as the Upanishads.
#Reincarnation

The most beautiful and complete formulation of the doctrine of karma and reincarnation is given in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad belonging to the Shukla Yajur Veda and considered to have been composed about 300 BCE.
#Reincarnation

When the embodied jiva departs (upon death), sense organs follow. It attains a subtle state as per its state of consciousness, past actions & latent vāsanas (habits, subliminal activators). This is conditioned by actions performed during its embodiment
& natural tendencies.

Just as a worm coming to the end of a blade of grass reaches out and takes hold of another and draws itself forward, in the same manner an embodied jiva withdrawing from this physical body makes the transition to another body.
#Reincarnation

Just as a goldsmith takes an old piece of jewellery & fashions it into a better form, so does the embodied jiva cast off the old body & make for itself a newer form like that of ancestors, angelic beings, gods, like Prajapati or Brahma or any other being.
#Reincarnation

The individual Self (jiva) in its intrinsic nature is qualitatively equal to Brahman the Supreme Being, but in the embodied state it identifies itself with the understanding, the mind, life-breath, sight, hearing, physical nature, with the emotional nature,
#Reincarnation

with the air, space, energy, and absence of energy, desire & absence of desire, anger & absence of anger, righteousness & absence of righteousness and with every other facet of the material world.
#Reincarnation

What one becomes is dependent upon one's actions, and attitudes. The doer of good deeds becomes good, the doer of evil deeds becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous actions and bad by evil actions.
#Reincarnation

Others however will add that a person consists of desires. As is one’s desire so is one’s intention; as is the intention so is the deed that is done, and one’s deeds condition what one will become. (Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad 4:1:1 – 5)
#Reincarnation