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- மறைமலையம் LDMMLDMWWILD – 31
the Tamils differ from its later form and observance, how have the modern Tamils to conduct it with necessary changes to suit the modern life requirements, what do the forms and principles of the ceremony signify-all these are treated exhaustively in these sections.
Then, the section thirtyone deals with the funeral rite observed by the Tamils in ancient and modern times and shows how it should be performed in future with the assistance of Tamil priests alone. After that, the thirty second section enters into a full discussion of the habits of mind inherited by each individual soul as an inevitable result of the deeds done in its previous births. Habits of mind acquired in previous lives and brought into this present life by each individual soul are summarily called in Tamil vinai or karma in Sanscrit. The Tamil people are by nature always reflective, and they could not therefore set their mind at rest with the satisfaction of their mere bodily wants. They went deeper into the problems that affect the human life as a whole, instead of limiting their thought to a transitory part of its existence. For every sentient being has a continuous existence, of which the present is a quick flying moment having no independent value and reality but for its intimate relation to what consituted its past and what would constitute its future. In an undertaking of a momentous kind you will not associate with you a man who seeks to take part in it, without getting an exact knowledge of his antecedents as well as his would be conduct. In the management of one's vital affairs, no one will leave it in the hands of stranger whose past history is so completely unknown as to render an inference of his future totally impossible. Nay, our very daily life is so closely interwoven with the kind of life we led in the previous days the kind of life we will lead in the days to
come.
Most of all, the very law of motion which we observe to prevail all around us warrants our belief in the existence of a series of lives through which every individual soul passes. For everything in this vast universe moves in a circle. The sun, moon and stars and our own earth move in a circle. Only for a limited length of time
