When it comes to the question of the recollection of former existences (pûrvenivâsânusmriti), there is an important question raised by Johannes Bronkhorst as to whether or not the Buddha’s awakening originally just mentioned knowledge of the destruction of intoxicants (P., âsava), omitting memory of former lives and knowledge of the births and death of beings. This is very important if you can imagine.
“The majority of versions of the long account of the enlightenment of the Buddha describe three insights: memory of earlier lives; knowledge of the births and deaths of beings; knowledge regarding the destruction of the intoxicants. Only the third insight has an obvious connection with liberation, which consists in the destruction of the intoxicants. The first two insights make the impression of having been added to the text which underlay these versions, and which was therefore without these first two insights” (Bronkhorst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India [1993], p. 119).
Bronkhorst, on the next page, informs the reader that in the Madhyama Âgama (T. 26 p. 589c14-23) which is a Sutra of the Sarvâstivâdins, there is only mention of the “destruction of the intoxicants.” There is “no mention of earlier lives and the knowledge of the births and deaths of other beings”.
This doesn’t rule out further becoming (S., punarbhava; P., punabbhava) after the death of the corporeal body in which the transmigrant is consciousness or vijñâna (never âtman/attâ). The vijñâna at death is laden with karmic impressions or samskâra which we might think of as akin to a radio signal in search of an antenna to resonate with again. The antenna would be the nâmarûpa (name-shape) which is the third nidâna of the 12-Nidânas (ni-dâ — to bind down). To briefly sum this up, life goes on for us in the form of vijñâna after our death but it is not necessary to know who we were in the past. However, it is necessary to live this life, properly. It is not the last.
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