Samsara
Saṃsāra (IAST)Translation: "the wheel of birth and death"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: संसार
Transliteration: Saṃsāra
Translation: "empirical existence; the wheel of birth and death; transmigration; the flux of the world; the flow of the world; the objective universe; this world (from the verb root sṛ = "to flow" and sam = "together"); worldly illusion"
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Saṃsāra (Sanskrit, ‘going around’), in Hindu thought, the ceaseless rounds of rebirth that constitute the human predicament. Saṃsāra speaks of the relentless cycle of coming and going in transmigration of the soul from body to body in this and other worlds. It is the manifestation of Karma, for one’s deeds bear fruition in the timing, status, form, and nature of the phenomenal person in future lives. Ordinary individuals have little prospect of release and in some systems the relationship among Karma, rebirth, and Saṃsāra is a highly mechanical cosmic law of debt and credit which affirms that human deeds produce their own reward or punishment. For theists the Deity is the ultimate controller of Saṃsāra and can break the cycle, adjust it, or, by the god’s kindness or grace, save one from future births regardless of one’s actions.
The Upanishads: Volume I (Swami Nikhilananda)
"The Vedāntists have formulated a doctrine of cycles, by which is described the unceasing process of creation and destruction, or, more precisely, manifestation and non-manifestation. The actions of one's present life find their recompense in the next life. Again, the present life is the result of the preceding one. Therefore, each existence presupposes an earlier one and consequently no existence can be the first. The rebirth of the soul (Jīva) has been going on from all eternity; and so Samsāra, or the relative universe, is without beginning. Indeed, it is absurd to speak of the beginning of a causal chain. When the Upanishads speak of a beginning or creation, they mean, really, the beginning of the present cycle. From all eternity, the universe has been going periodically into a state of non-manifestation and then again returning into the manifest state of names and forms. At the conclusion of each cycle, the universe and all those living beings that have not been liberated from Māyā return to Brahman, that is to say, to His Prakṛti, or primordial nature.
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Audi, Robert (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press
- Nikhilananda, Swami (1949). The Upanishads: Volume I—Katha, Iśa, Kena, and Mundaka. New York, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. p. 67-68.
