Is there any explanation on why only humans and animals do not remember previous life?
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All the beings you mention as remembering past lives are spontaneously reborn (opapaatika), whereas humans and animals are either egg-born (aṇḍaja), womb-born (jalābuja), or moisture-born (saṃsedaja). Only spontaneously reborn beings are readily able to remember their past lives; most others have their past life memories repressed by the trauma and general coarseness of their rebirth.
I know this is all general Buddhist knowledge, but I can't find a reliable source from the original texts; if anyone knows of one, please feel free to put it in the comments.
Upvote:2
All the beings you mention as remembering past lives are spontaneously reborn (opapaatika), whereas humans and animals are either egg-born (aṇḍaja), womb-born (jalābuja), or moisture-born (saṃsedaja). Only spontaneously reborn beings are readily able to remember their past lives; most others have their past life memories repressed by the trauma and general coarseness of their rebirth.
I know this is all general Buddhist knowledge, but I can't find a reliable source from the original texts; if anyone knows of one, please feel free to put it in the comments. - Ven. Yuttadhammo
This is in reference to Ven. Yuttadhammo's answer.
"Sariputta, there are these four kinds of generation. What are the four? Egg-born generation, womb-born generation, moisture-born generation and spontaneous generation.
"What is egg-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out of the shell of an egg; this is called egg-born generation. What is womb-born generation? There are these beings born by breaking out from the caul; this is called womb-born generation. What is moisture-born generation? There are these beings born in a rotten fish, in a rotten corpse, in rotten dough, in a cesspit, or in a sewer; this is called moisture-born generation. What is spontaneous generation? There are gods and denizens of hell and certain human beings and some beings in the lower worlds; this is called spontaneous generation. These are the four kinds of generation.
(Maha-Sihanada Sutta, MN 12)
You can refer to : http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.012.ntbb.html
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