Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/275
other even as a god? For our convenience we may answer the second question first. The celebrated Law-Book of Manu, at a time when this doctrine has become cut and dried, teaches that a Brahman priest who steals the substance which has been entrusted to him for sacrifice to the gods will in his next existence become a vulture or a crow.[1] Why? Because the vulture and the crow make their living by stealing food. Briefly, man is what he does.
Note the superb moral possibilities of this teaching. This is the well-known doctrine of karma, or "deed," now famous wherever men are interested in the evolution of the human mind. Deed and the will, or "desire," as the Hindus call it, back of the deed, are essentially one and the same thing. On desire man's nature is founded; as his desires so are his endeavors, as his endeavors so are his deeds. By his deeds the character of his next birth in the round of existences is regulated, for he is himself the sum of his own deeds. If his karma in a given life has accumulated for him a good balance, as it were, the next life will be delightful and noble; conversely, if his life is evil, the next birth will be, consequently, as a low and degraded being. Life is character – character inherited and inherent from previous existence, and character modelled and shaped by the deeds of
- ↑ Manu 11. 25.