The Significance of Rebirth

The purpose and values of this concept

- Devdutt Pattanaik

M ythology uses fantastic concepts to explain human emotions and human cognition. Ideas like God and equality do not exist in nature. These are human concepts. How do we explain them visually? We can see horses. We can see mango trees. So, we can draw horses, and mango trees. But how do we draw something no one has seen? Mythology is about the unseen world of ideas: concepts. It uses fantastic images to explain ideas that do not exist in nature. The supernatural is essentially artificial ideas; man-made ideas.

To explain the workings of nature, early man came up with the idea of Gods. Gods in trees that produce flowers and fruits. Gods of the forest and the rivers who protect birds, bees, beasts, and fish. To ensure an alignment with rules, Middle Eastern tribes came up with tales of a God in the sky who demands obedience and threatens the disobedient with floods. In India, they spoke of rebirth to explain the diversity, unpredictability, and inequalities of life. These ideas were communicated through fantastic stories and unreal imagery.

For example, the Jataka tales inform us about 550 previous births of Buddha, some as plants, some as animals, and some as humans.