This life thus presupposes
another existence. So far as I remember there has seldom been
before or after Buddha any serious attempt to prove or disprove
the doctrine of rebirth [Footnote ref 1]. All schools of philosophy
except the Carvakas believed in it and so little is known to us of
the Carvaka sutras that it is difficult to say what they did to
refute this doctrine. The Buddha also accepts it as a fact and does
not criticize it. This life therefore comes only as one which had an
infinite number of lives before, and which except in the case of
a few emancipated ones would have an infinite number of them
in the future. It was strongly believed by all people, and the
Buddha also, when he came to think to what our present birth
might be due, had to fall back upon another existence (_bhava_).
If bhava means karma which brings rebirth as Candrakirtti takes
it to mean, then it would mean that the present birth could only
take place on account of the works of a previous existence which
determined it. Here also we are reminded of the Upani@sad note
"as a man does so will he be born" (_Yat karma kurute tadabhisampadyate_,
Brh IV.
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