Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Hinduism and Cloning

On March 4, 1997, in the wake of the successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell by scientists,¹ President Clinton prohibited the use of federal funding for cloning of human beings.² The President's decision reflected the widespread ethical unease felt at large at the prospect of human cloning. It seems fair to say that, on the whole, this attitude reflects the position of the Abrahamic religions, which tend to view human cloning not merely with disfavour but sometimes also as something potentially diabolical.³

The Hindu position in this respect seems to represent another point of view on the matter. One does not have to claim that one is standing at an Archemedian point to suggest that the distance provided by the vantage point of another tradition, in this case the Hindu, may be a powerful lens for viewing the scene from another angle.

Hinduism recognizes the diabolical potential of egomaniacal cloning. That is one way of reading the story of the encounter of the Great Goddess with the Demon Raktabija. This demon, as the name indicates, could recreate himself in his entirety from a single drop of blood, as it fell on the ground. In order to overcome this demon, so clever at cloning himself, the Goddess had to rely on the extraordinary protrusion of her tongue to lap up all of his blood before it fell to the ground. This might be seen as a Hindu version of the doomsday scenario of a Hitler cloning himself ad infinitum.

Hindu Yoga, however, offers a positive spin even to this form of cloning, by pressing it into service for ego-elimination rather than ego-aggrandisement. It should be borne in mind, the Karma in Yoga is a shorthand for ego-centric activity. From this point of view, the individual as a Jiva, is the sum-total of the accumulation of such ego-centric activity from a beginningless past, and liberation amounts to getting rid of this grand-total, otherwise called Prarabdha. According to Yoga, the physical body is the means through which we exhaust this Karma (or add to it if we perversely persist in our ego-centric activities). Taking the cue from the fact that the experiences undergone by the physical body diminish the stock of piled-up Karma, the advanced Yogi can speed up this process by cloning himself. Then the results otherwise accomplished successively through many reincarnations can be accomplished simultaneously through several physical bodies and the Karma residues exhausted all the more quickly.

This may be called spiritual cloning so as not to confuse it with the physical cloning of contemporary science. The distinction is important. In the case of human physical cloning, if and when successfully accomplished by modern science, the issue will not be, whether the clone will inherit the Karma of the original person, or: `What did the sheep do in a previous life that resulted in its being cloned in this one',⁴ as has been supposed. In the case of physical cloning the clone will no more inherit the Karma of the original than the child inherits the Karma of his or her parents. Similarly, the issue may well not be what the sheep did in a previous life to be cloned in this life, but rather what Karma did the cloned sheep perform in a previous life to be reborn as a sheep, albeit clonedkill a sheep? Physical cloning represents a case of Karmic infusion, spiritual cloning that of Karmic diffusion. The Nirmana bodies of the Yogi need not be genetically identical with the physical body of the Yogi, only karmically so. Karma codes the genes and not vice versa.

But enough of the secret lives of the Goddess and the Yogis. What about the Hindu in the street, whose imagination these beings may inhabit mythically but whose life is axiologically oriented towards the four Purusarthas: the quadripartite axiological framework built around the values of Dharma (Virtue, Morality), Artha (Wealth and Power), Kama (Aesthetics and Sex) and Moksa (Liberation or Salvation). All these four goals of human endeavour are valid, although the pride of place belongs to Moksa in the ultimate analysis. Wealth and Power and Aesthetics and Sex may be pursued, but subject to virtue or morality. Morality is central to the scheme, as it is the controlling value in relation to Wealth and Power, and Aesthetics and Sex, and is the enabling value in relation to salvation. In other words, while permitting cloning as such, Hinduism would insist on its ethical regulation.

Indic religions, although less anthropocentric than the Western on the whole, do contain some anthropocentric elements; but typically in their soteriologies one stands a better chance of being liberated as a human being. Significantly, however, they are not typically anthropocentric in their cosmologies. Can a clone be liberated or saved?and if the original is saved is the clone as well or vice versa?are far more interesting questions from their point of view. The answer, by the way, is no to each clone or no-clonewhen it comes to Karma or liberation.

It is clear that the concept of human being and of its destiny has a vital bearing on how a religion might view cloning. The so-called Western or Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are inclined to accord a unique status to human beings in the created universe, because, unlike animals, they possess souls, among other things. They tend to oppose cloning as compromising such uniqueness. Moreover, if God is the creator, then cloning has the uncomfortable implication that human beings may be `playing God' by indulging in it, specially if a wide ontological gulf is said to separate the creation (human beings included) from the creator.⁵ In Hinduism, with its numerous gods, one might further like to know what kind of god one intends to play, instead of being petrified by the thought of playing god!

In Indic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism), creation is viewed more as a natural cosmic processa process presided over by God in some forms of the Indic religions and entirely natural in others. Similarly, the range of possible rebirths includes animals and `angels'. Thus the partition between the natural, the supernatural and the subnatural (dare one add the unnatural?) is thinner than in the western religions and that open attitude rubs off on the issue of cloning as well.

Although such differences thus characterize the families of religions the Abrahamic and the Indicthe Hindu position does possess a flavour of its own. In fact within Hinduism, as if cloning within creation is not fantastic enough, creation itself can be cloned! When the sages Vashistha and Vishvamitra got into a fight and the former excluded the latter from his universe, then, not to be outdone, Vishvamitra `cloned' the universe! The texts say he set up a `parallel universe', but is that not a form of cosmic cloning?

This confirms our suspicion that in terms of boggling the mind, Hinduism is to religion what cloning is to science. But we haven't seen anything yet, for the question remains: How could such a view of the world, in which everything is prone to overflow as it were, be metaphysically anchored, for even the wildest imagination must maintain its toehold somewhere in reality. Hinduism keeps working on the foundation. To provide, then, some metaphysical foundation to the issue, let us invoke the celebrated rope-snake metaphor of Hinduism. The ultimate reality accounts for the universe, just as a rope accounts for the illusory appearance of the snake to the drunken onlooker. When the question is asked, incredulously, how the matter of the `extra' universe or the `extra' souls of the cloned individuals could possibly be accounted for, the equally incredulous Hindu looks back at the interrogator and asks: How many snakes, do you think, might come out of a rope, to one in an inebriated state, and how many scales do you think a fake snake could possibly possess? Let's drink to that.⁶

1. Michael Spelter and Gina Kolata, After Decades and Many Misses, Cloning Success, New York Times, March 3, 1997, p. A1, B6-B8.
2. Rick Weiss, Clinton Forbids Funding on Human Clone Studies Privately Financed, Scientists Urged to Halt Work, Washington Post, March 5, 1997, p. A10.
3. Kenneth L. Woodward, Today the Sheep..., Newsweek, March 10, 1997, p. 60.
4. Ibid., p. 60.
5. Time, March 10, 1997, p. 41.
6. I would like to thank Dr. Shrinivas Tilak of Concordia University for his helpful
suggestions.