26 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIONTransition
Vedanta, Jainism, and Theravada Buddhism at root are Indian religions.
Each has its own sacred texts.^8 Advaita Vedanta and Theravada Buddhism
rather considerably qualify what is meant by reincarnation and karma, but
they begin with these as assumptions. There is a story that, in its Jain
version, goes as follows:
A traveller was journeying through a dense forest when he en-
countered a mad elephant which charged him with upraised
trunk. As he turned to flee, a terrible demoness with a naked
sword in her hand appeared before him and barred his path.
There was a great tree near the track, and he ran up to it, hoping
to find safety in its branches, but he could find no foothold in its
smooth trunk. His only refuge was an old well, covered with
grass and weeds, at the foot of the tree, and into this he leapt. As
he fell, he managed to catch hold of a clump of reeds which grew
from the wall, and there he hung, midway between the mouth of
the well and its bottom. Looking down, he saw that the bottom
did not contain water, but was surrounded by snakes, which
hissed at him as he hung above them. In their midst was a
mighty python, its mouth agape, waiting to catch him when he
fell. Raising his head again, he saw two mice, one white and the
other black, busily eating away at the roots. Meanwhile, the wild
elephant ran up to the well and, enraged at losing its victim, be-
gan charging at the trunk of the tree. Thus he dislodged a hon-
eycomb which hung from a branch above the well, and it fell
upon the man hanging there so precariously. Angry bees
swarmed round his head and tormented him with their stings.
But one drop of honey fell on his brow, rolled down to his face,
and reached his lips. Immediately, he forgot his peril and
thought of nothing more than of obtaining another drop of
honey.^9Reincarnation and karma
Common to Hinduism, Jainism, and Theravada Buddhism are two familiar
assumptions. Each accepts as a basic framework the doctrines of
reincarnation (that each person is beginninglessly born and dies and is
reborn and redies, and that this will occur endlessly short of one’s