This verse I have heard many politicians of yesteryear utter in tandem with political speeches, I often wonder from where it originated.
This has nothing to do with Buddhism or Dhamma.
Somebody with knowledge with Pali had coined this verse and all politicians of yesteryear and present use this as a phrase to propagate his or her name and tribe.
“Rupam Jirati Majjanam (Body decays)
Nama Gottam Najirathi” (name and tribe do not)
The face value seems all Buddhist in nature but its implication in modern day is really disruptive to the nature of Dhamma as stated in the Tripitaka (the Three Baskets).
There is no problem with the first statement.
The second statement destroys the whole tenet of Dhamma in its entirety.
In Buddhist phenomenology self (Nama or Soul) does not exist and the tribe (Gothra) is an illusion that originate from the above wrong premise.
I have to restate the same with my own invention as below.
The meaning I am trying to derive at is that the Mind State does not vanish at death but (Patisandhi) re-link with the next Bhava using Kamma as the vehicle or the driving force.
Rupam Jirati Majjanam
Nama (means Mind here) Kittam (means Kamma) Najirathi
(The Gotham is substituted with Kittam-Kriya)
In Abhidhamma context it is realistic to use the above version of the verse (even though I am not a Pali scholar) to express the conditional existence of Bhava.
Who perpetuated this myth is immaterial but the damage it has done is enormous.
This I think originated with the British rule.
What went wrong was that we adapted this tradition without scrutiny in the post-colonial period and continue to do so even now.
Even though the tradition is British the wrongful doing is our own ill vision, political patronage and heritage.