Do Hindus believe in reincarnation (punarjanma)?
Most Hindu traditions teach punarjanma, “birth again”: the self (atman) does not die with the body but takes another, as a person puts on new clothes after old ones (Gita 2.22). What the next life is like follows from one's deeds and desires, which is the working of karma. The round of birth and death is called samsara, and freedom from it is moksha. The Gita says: “to one that is born, death is certain; and to one that dies, birth is certain” (2.27). The schools on this page agree on rebirth; they differ on what ends it and on what the freed self becomes.
Written for Pujadeep and checked against the sources listed.
What the schools say
Upanishads
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad gives the classic picture. At death, “both his knowledge and his work take hold of him”, and “as a caterpillar, after having reached the end of a blade of grass”, draws itself to the next blade, so the self draws itself to another body. What decides the next life is the person's desire and deeds: “as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be” (4.4.2–5, Müller).
Sources for this reading
- The Upanishads, Part II, translated by F. Max Müller (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884) (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.2–5, pp. 175–176 (leaves n232–n233); quoted verbatim and checked on the page images)
Advaita (Shankara)
Shankara says that the thought at the end of life decides the next body, and that final thought grows from what one has dwelt on all along (on Gita 8.6). Knowledge of the Self ends rebirth. Yet the body of one who has this knowledge lives on until the deeds already in motion are spent, “as in the case of the potter's wheel”, which turns a while after the potter stops.
Sources for this reading
- The Bhagavad-Gita, with the commentary of Sri Sankaracharya, translated by A. Mahadeva Sastri (2nd ed., Mysore: G. T. A. Printing Works, 1901) (commentary on 8.6, p. 203)
- Bhagavad Gita, 8.6
- Brahma Sutra 4.1.15, Shankara's commentary, in George Thibaut (tr.), The Vedânta-Sûtras with the Commentary by Sankarâkârya, Part II (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 38, Oxford, 1896). Thibaut died 1914: public domain. Quoted verbatim from the OCR of the scan. (pp. 357–358)
Vishishtadvaita (Ramanuja)
Ramanuja reads Gita 8.5–6 with an old story: King Bharata, who died thinking of a deer he loved, was born as one. Whatever image is most present in the mind at death, that the person becomes. Those who reach the Lord are not born again: “after attaining to me, there is no birth again” (8.16, Telang).
Sources for this reading
- Sri Bhagavad-Gita with Sri Ramanujacharya's Visishtadvaita commentary, translated by A. Govindacharya (Madras, 1898) (commentary on 8.5–8.6, pp. 266–267)
- Bhagavad Gita, 8.16
The Bhagavad Gita (the text)
The Gita returns to rebirth again and again. The self passes through childhood, youth and old age in one body, and “so does the acquisition of another body” (2.13). Even heaven is not lasting: those who reach it by rites return “when (their) merit is exhausted” (9.21). Only those who reach the highest are not born again into a life that is “transient, a home of woes” (8.15, Telang).
Sources for this reading
Sources
- Bhagavad Gita, 2.22
- Bhagavad Gita, 2.27
- Learn pages what-is-karma, what-is-moksha and what-is-atman in this library.
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Source and licence
- Our explanation
- Written for this site from the sources listed here, and checked against them. Free to quote with credit.
- Checked
- Checked against the sources listed, October 16, 2026.
- Updated
- October 25, 2026