Kamma and Rebirth are intimately related to each other.
It is like the two sides of the same coin. One sees only one aspect of it at a given time but if one looks at a coin tossed up and rolling like a wheel instead of falling on the head or the tail that actually describes the actual working of it intimately intertwined.
The Wheel of Samsara is the better description since it rolls on without any cessation endlessly on a timeless scale from one birth to the other without any intervening phase or Untharbava state
Once, one cycle is over it takes another cycle of it but the face of the coin changes appropriately to a penny, a 50 pence coin or a pound coin of ascendancy or from a pound to a penny of deceleration in many forms of life including animals.
That is the closest description according to the scriptures.
I must warn you that some authors have distorted its very tenet.
But I should tell you at the very outset, that the Hindu version of Kamma has many descriptive terms irrelevant to Buddhist teaching like group Kamma and group Soul, which I would not entertain here.
Unfortunately, very little is talked about rebirth except the Jathaka stories which are limited, by only about 550 stories recorded in detail. If, I assume that Buddha spent over 10,000 to 15,000 days preaching after attainment of Buddhahood Jathaka stories are only about 5% of that lot. Besides, the period of previous births, he spent on perfecting “paramitha", the absolute perfections , one is required to achieve, before becoming a Buddha is so numerous, it looks as, there is a big gap of credibility of the number of stories in scriptures.
The stories seem to postdate Buddha’s “parinibbana” and this can be explained by the fact that the first Buddhist Congress was held probably after 100 (may be even less) years of “parnibbana" and the disciples who were Arhaths and attended it were less than 1000. It looks as each one of them related one story as he or she had heard of them and that those stories were handed down verbatim, since then, till they were recorded on Ola leaves in a much later time.
When one considers the enormity of the Samsara there is obviously paucity of current information relevant to rebirth.
Often, only a very few had done sufficient research into modern birth stories and their conclusions are not pervasive enough to stamp an authority, in a mind of an inquirer with open mind.
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