From what I understand, the system of Hindu reincarnation - samsara - is based on karma. If you follow the rules of your station in this lifetime, you’ll be reincarnated into a better station in future lifetimes. If you don’t follow the rules, you’ll be reincarnated into a worst station. And one of the lower stations a person can be reincarnated into is being demoted down to an animal.
My question is does karma still apply? Let’s say I was a terrible person so I get reincarnated as a frog. Is my life as a frog just a sort of karmic equivalent of a time-out? Or is karma still in effect? Do I need to live the life of a good frog to make it back to being a human? Can I get demoted to something worse, like a cockroach, if I’m a bad frog?
Which leads me to ask how one defines a “good” frog to begin with. Do frogs have a concept of ethical behavior?
I think I remember reading somewhere that at least some Buddhists believe that there are other worlds that one can be reborn in other than Earth, so I can imagine a “lower” station might be on a planet ruled by a despotic dictator and where painful, disfiguring disease is epidemic. Pure Land Buddhism, iirc, involves efforts of the follower to be reincarnated on another world which is supposedly “Pure”, but is a reincarnation nonetheless.
no idea about Hindu stuff. Here are descriptions of the Buddhist hells Naraka (Buddhism) - Wikipedia . Despotic dictators would be the last of your worries in any of those places.
The big idea behind the Pure Land heaven is that “it’s hard to be a virtuous Buddhist down here, but it’s real easy at Amida’s place”. So if you go there, you will be able to live a life that’s righteous, enjoyable and does not require any major effort (any “fanaticism”, to use a term familiar from modern propaganda) and then go straight to nirvana. Or whatever is the intended final destination. Reputedly this religion was very popular among Japanese lower class people who were stuck living lives lacking both joy and righteousness.
Yes, that’s an issue I was going to raise myself. Even if you accept the idea that there is a moral code for animals and that animals are capable of making choices over moral issues, you’re still left with the question of how you’d acquire that knowledge. People, after all, receive moral guidance. But frogs do not.
It seems more likely that living as an animal is not an issue of karma. An animal life is basically just something you endure because you committed immoral actions in a past life as a human.
But I would like to hear what somebody knowledgeable about Hindu beliefs thinks.
There are many different views on karma within the greater Hinduistic traditions. This is a relatively common interpretation:
The entire universe is within grip of karma - which is mostly just the view that actions have consequences. Etymologically “karma” stems from the root “kṛ” that means “to do”.
Human beings are able to consciously choose their actions and therefore have a chance of influencing the consequences. An equally important term is dharma that (among other things) refer to a moral and religious obligation imposed on you by your place in life and society. Upholding (or acting according to) your dharma is in many ways considered the best
kind of action (karma) and may liberate you from saṃsāra.
There are other ways of “bypassing” saṃsāra apart from “right conduct”: Unbridled love of god (bhakti), Meditation (yoga), and asceticism are among those usually mentioned.
Karma’s often compared to a seed, if you add water (emotion) it will sprout or you fry it with fire (will power) and render it it unable to germinate.
I don’t really see it as a simple cause and effect, the sad truth is bad people don’t usually seem do not get what coming to them.
There is a specific Buddhist myth that addresses this. During a famine, a holy man and attendant saw a starving tigress about to devour her young in desperation. To save the soul, the holy man sent the attendant to get some food. When the attendant came back, he found that he’d been tricked, the holy man had sacrificed himself to the tigress.
Granted, that’s a Buddhist myth, and not a Hindu myth, but you can see how people, through time, have worried about animal souls. There’s even a Christian myth with the exact same story about a Saint with the same motivation – even though that doesn’t really match contemporary theology.