“...due to the growth of consciousness (viññâna) the coming rebirth-formation process takes place.” ~ S.ii.65 "Therefore, with the breakup of the body, the wise man does not fare on to [another] body. Not faring on to [another] body, he is freed from birth, aging, and death; freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair,: freed from suffering I say." ~ S.ii.25 "Just as a silkworm makes a cocoon in which to wrap itself and then leaves the cocoon behind, so consciousness produces a body to envelop itself and then leaves that body to undergo other karmic results in a new body." ~ Mahâratnakûta Sutra In early Buddhism, consciousness (vijñâna, viññâna) is regarded as the transmigrant which survies man’s death (vide: SN.II.82, AN.V.300, MN.I.296, Dhp. 41). The Self, on this note, is not the transmigrant as it is immutable. Only in Nirvana does the mutability of consciousness appeaer to cease, resting in its own natural infinity and luminosity (AN.I.10). Vasubandhu explains rebirth of the Bardo (= antara/intermediate) being: An intermediate being is produced with a view to going to the place of its realm of rebirth where it should go. It possesses, by virtue of its actions, the divine eye. Even though distant he sees the place of his rebirth. There he sees his father and mother united. His mind is troubled by the effects of sex and hostility. When the intermediate being is male, it is gripped by a male desire with regard to the mother; when it is female, it is gripped by a female desire with regard to the father; and, inversely, it hates either the father, or the mother, whom it regards as either a male or a female rival. As it is said in the Prajñâpti, "Then neither a mind of lust, nor a mind of hatred is produced in the Gandharva.” When the mind is thus troubled by these two erroneous thoughts, it attaches itself through the desire for sex to the place where the organs are joined together, imagining that it is he with whom they unite. Then the impurities of semen and blood are found in the womb; the intermediate being, enjoying its pleasures, installs itself there. Then the skandhas harden; the intermediate being perishes; and birth arises that is called "reincarnation" (pratisa.mdhi). ~ Abhidharmakoshabhasyam 3:15