The Content of Cultural Continuity in India

One of the problems recurring in the Buddhist Pali Texts is the question of what it is that transmigrates. Buddhism accepts as axiomatic the doctrine of rebirth, a process of “renewal of becomings” until the attainment of complete knowledge, whereupon the process terminates. At the same time, the Pali texts are committed to the doctrine that there is no soul. The two doctrines, held simultaneously, presented a difficulty of which the Buddhist monks were well aware. If there is no soul, no Ego, no self, and yet rebirth is a fact, what is reborn?