Buddhism teaches rebirth without a permanent soul; Hinduism teaches reincarnation of an eternal self (atman) into new bodies.
The fundamental distinction lies in what is reborn. Hinduism posits an eternal, unchanging soul (atman) that migrates from body to body across lifetimes, carrying the essential self forward. Buddhism explicitly rejects this concept. The Buddha taught that there is no permanent, independent self or soul (anatman or anatta in Pali). Instead, what continues from one life to the next is a stream of consciousness or momentary continuity of experience, driven by karma and craving. This is a radical philosophical difference that shapes everything else about how each tradition understands rebirth.
In Buddhist texts like the Milinda Panha (Questions of King Milinda), the relationship between lives is compared to a flame passing from one candle to another. The flame is not the same flame, nor is it entirely different—it's a continuity without identity. There is no substantial entity being reborn, only the causal chain of conditioning continuing forward.
Both traditions use karma to explain why rebirth occurs and what determines the circumstances of future lives. However, the mechanism differs slightly. In Hinduism, karma directly affects the eternal atman, determining which body and circumstances it will be reborn into based on past actions. The atman itself is unchanged; it simply experiences different conditions.
In Buddhism, karma is the impersonal law of cause and effect. Actions create mental and volitional imprints that shape the arising of the next consciousness at the moment of death. The Abhidhamma (Buddhist philosophical texts) describes this as the consciousness at death being the condition for the arising of consciousness in the new life. There is no transmigrating entity; rather, one moment of consciousness conditions the next, producing the appearance of continuity across lifetimes without requiring a soul.
Buddhism emphasizes that rebirth itself is fundamentally driven by craving and attachment (tanha). The Second Noble Truth identifies craving as the cause of suffering and continued existence. As long as beings crave existence, sensory pleasures, or even non-existence, they will be reborn. Liberation (nirvana) comes precisely through extinguishing this craving.
While Hinduism also acknowledges that attachment keeps beings in the cycle of samsara (rebirth), the emphasis is different. In many Hindu traditions, rebirth continues until the atman recognizes its identity with Brahman (ultimate reality) and escapes the cycle. The mechanism involves ignorance of one's true nature rather than specifically the craving that Buddhism emphasizes. This reflects a different metaphysical foundation: Hinduism's belief in an eternal self versus Buddhism's denial of any permanent self.
Both traditions teach that liberation from rebirth is possible, but the destination differs. In Hindu philosophy, the liberated atman merges with Brahman or achieves moksha, realizing its eternal, unchanging nature. The individual self continues to exist, but in a unified state with ultimate reality.
In Buddhism, the goal is nirvana, which is not a place or permanent state to which the self goes. Rather, it is the cessation of the conditions that produce rebirth—the extinction of craving, aversion, and delusion. When an enlightened being (arhat) dies, there is no rebirth because the causes for rebirth have been extinguished. Notably, nirvana is not annihilation of a self, since Buddhism denies there is a self to annihilate. It is simply the end of the process.
Hindu concepts of reincarnation are found throughout the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and Vedantic philosophy. The Katha Upanishad speaks of the atman as eternal and indestructible, unchanging while bodies perish. The Gita (2.22-23) uses the metaphor of changing clothes to describe the atman's movement between bodies.
Buddhist teachings on rebirth appear in the Pali Canon, particularly in suttas discussing dependent origination (pratityasamutpada), which explains how consciousness and conditioned phenomena arise in a chain. The Dhammapada and various suttas in the Samyutta Nikaya address how beings are reborn according to their karma without requiring a transmigrating soul. These textual differences reflect centuries of distinct philosophical development in the two traditions.