Perspectives on Reincarnation Hindu, Christian, and Scientific Edited by Jeffery D. Long Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Perspectives on Reincarnation Perspectives on Reincarnation Hindu, Christian, and Scientific Special Issue Editor Jeffery D. Long MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade Special Issue Editor Jeffery D. Long Elizabethtown College USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) from 2017 to 2018 (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special issues/reincarnation) For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03897-535-9 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03897-536-6 (PDF) c 2019 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Special Issue Editor ...................................... vii Jeffery D. Long Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, and Scientific—Editor’s Introduction Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 231, doi:10.3390/rel9080231 .................... 1 Jeffery D. Long One Life/Many Lives: An Internal Hindu-Christian Dialogue Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 104, doi:10.3390/rel9040104 .................... 3 Gerald James Larson Pata¯ njala˜ Yoga’s Theory of ‘Many-Lives’ through Karma and Rebirth and Its Eccentric ‘Theism’ Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 4, doi:10.3390/rel9010004 ...................... 18 Jonathan Edelmann Seeing in Eternal Return: Hermeneutical Perspectives on Karma and Rebirth Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 250, doi:10.3390/rel8110250 .................... 27 Christopher Key Chapple Reincarnation: Mechanics, Narratives, and Implications Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 236, doi:10.3390/rel8110236 .................... 40 Lee Irwin Reincarnation in America: A Brief Historical Overview Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 222, doi:10.3390/rel8100222 .................... 55 Nalini Bhushan Hindu Students and Their Missionary Teachers: Debating the Relevance of Rebirth in the Colonial Indian Academy Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 198, doi:10.3390/rel8090198 .................... 81 G´erard Colas and Usha Colas-Chauhan An 18th Century Jesuit “Refutation of Metempsychosis” in Sanskrit Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 192, doi:10.3390/rel8090192 .................... 88 C. Nicholas Serra To Never See Death: Yeats, Reincarnation, and Resolving the Antinomies of the Body-Soul Dilemma Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 182, doi:10.3390/rel8090182 ....................103 Steven J. Rosen The Reincarnation(s) of Jaya and Vijaya: A Journey through the Yugas Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 178, doi:10.3390/rel8090178 ....................122 Bradley Malkovsky Belief in Reincarnation and Some Unresolved Questions in Catholic Eschatology Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 176, doi:10.3390/rel8090176 ....................129 Religions Editorial Office Erratum: Belief in Reincarnation and Some Unresolved Questions in Catholic Eschatology. Religions 2017, 8, 176 Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 29, doi:10.3390/rel9010029 .....................140 v Ankur Barua The Reality and the Verifiability of Reincarnation Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 162, doi:10.3390/rel8090162 ....................141 Ted Christopher Science’s Big Problem, Reincarnation’s Big Potential, and Buddhists’ Profound Embarrassment Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 155, doi:10.3390/rel8080155 ....................154 Ithamar Theodor Rebirth According to the Bhagavad g¯ıt¯a; Epistemology, Ontology and Ethics Reprinted from: Religions 2017, 8, 148, doi:10.3390/rel8080148 ....................175 Francis X. Clooney, SJ One-Birth, Many-Births: A Conversation Reborn A Response to “Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, and Scientific,” a Thematic Issue of Religions Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 204, doi:10.3390/rel9070204 ....................185 vi About the Special Issue Editor Jeffery D. Long (Dr.) is Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College. He is the author of A Vision for Hinduism, Jainism: An Introduction, and The Historical Dictionary of Hinduism, as well as the co-editor, with K.T.S. Sarao, of the Buddhism and Jainism volume of the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. Dr. Long’s interest in reincarnation was sparked in his childhood, by the death of his father, becoming a lifelong preoccupation and propelling him into a career of studying traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, in which this idea is affirmed. vii religions Editorial Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, and Scientific—Editor’s Introduction Jeffery D. Long Religion & Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA 17022, USA; [email protected] Received: 24 July 2018; Accepted: 25 July 2018; Published: 27 July 2018 It has been an honor and a privilege, as well as a highly enjoyable experience, to serve as the guest editor of this special issue of Religions on the topic of reincarnation. As my own article for this issue elaborates, the topic of reincarnation is one that has fascinated me for many years, ever since a childhood tragedy led to me to reflect upon and question deeply what I had been taught on the topic of the afterlife by the religious tradition in which I was raised. That I am not alone in having a fascination with this topic is evidenced by the sheer volume of popular books and articles on the idea of rebirth produced and consumed every year. While it is a mainstream idea in those parts of the world where the Dharma traditions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism) predominate, recent opinion surveys have shown that as many as one in five Americans also profess a belief in some form of reincarnation.1 Scholars are not exempt from this widespread interest. Indeed, there would seem to be an upswing in scholarly interest in this topic, as the articles in this special issue indicate. This interest ranges from the historical, to the literary, to the theological and philosophical. The articles gathered here raise varying questions from equally varying perspectives on the topic of reincarnation. What do particular traditions and texts teach about reincarnation? How is reincarnation conceptualized differently in different religious and cultural contexts? These are questions of a more historical and descriptive variety. What evidence can be presented either for or against reincarnation as a really occurring phenomenon, and not merely a subject of personal belief? What philosophical or theological arguments can be marshalled either for or against the idea of reincarnation? These are questions about the veracity of claims regarding reincarnation, about whether or not there really is such a thing, and what it might mean to answer this question either affirmatively or negatively. The articles collected here take up these questions, and more, providing a broad (though I would not say comprehensive) overview of this topic. The primary focus of the articles in this collection has been upon reincarnation as approached from either Hindu or Christian perspectives. These are two traditions whose adherents have engaged with one another on this topic with some frequency. For many Hindus, some version of the doctrine of reincarnation is axiomatic, and foundational to spiritual practice. For Christians, reincarnation has been a vexed issue, with many Christians being attracted to the idea from the earliest days of the church to the present, but with the mainstream of the tradition rejecting the idea as incompatible with foundational Christian teachings. It has thus been a natural topic of Hindu-Christian polemics. Some of these polemics have been described in articles found in this collection (e.g., the articles by Nalini Bhushan, Gérard Colas, and Usha Colas-Chauhan), while other articles in this collection are themselves contributions to this polemical literature (e.g., the article by Bradley Malkovsky, which argues from a Christian perspective, and my own, which argues from a Hindu perspective). Some of the articles collected here describe, in depth, articulations of rebirth that arise from particular Hindu texts and traditions (e.g., the articles of Gerald Larson, Jonathan 1 (Miller 2009). Religions 2018, 9, 231; doi:10.3390/rel90802311 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Religions 2018, 9, 231 Edelmann, Steven Rosen, and Ithamar Theodor). One article, that of Christopher Chapple, brings the Hindu tradition into a wider dialogue with Buddhism and Jainism, while Ted Christopher’s article brings Buddhism into dialogue with science. Science (along with philosophy more broadly) is an important interlocutor in the reincarnation discourse as well, being brought to bear especially by proponents of this idea in order to establish it on a more widely agreed upon foundation than the teachings of a particular, confessional tradition, though also by critics, in order to question its veracity.