古代印度に於ける靈魂觀念
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概要
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The idea of soul constitutes a very important factor in the speculations that occupied the mind of Indian philosophers since early times, because it is, on the and it plays, on the other, as the individual soul (samsarin), a principal part in the Karma doctrine.The present paper limits the subject to the Vedic literature. It is hard to find there a precise equivalent for the word soul, but prana, asu and manas may roughly correspond to this conception.In the Veda and even in the Upanishads no clear distinction was drawn between sprit and matter, soul and body, the difference being conceived merely as that of the grade of subtlety, or in other words, the soul was considered to consist of subtle material, the body of gross one.It was quite natural for the Vedic people who believed in the existence of the other world, to think that the soul should be furnished with the sense organs (in some invisible form) in order to be able to enjoy their future life. Moreover, the soul was believed to leave the body temporarity in the case of serious illness and permanently in the case of death, so that it was conceived as something, moving as freely and quickly as wind, very subtle like smoke and quite intangible like shadow.The idea of soul in the Vedic age, passing through many generations of speculation, gradually developed into the conception of the transmigrating soul and was later stereotyped, each according to its system, into suksma-sarira, lingasarira, ativahika, antarabhava etc. etc.
- 北海道大学の論文