Reincarnation_Res

RESURRECTION AND REINCARNATION
M.M.NINAN
The Akh ( meaning '(magically) effective one'), was a concept of the dead that
varied over the long history of ancient Egyptian belief. It was associated with
thought, but not as an action of the mind; rather, it was intellect as a living entity.
The Akh also played a role in the afterlife. Following the death of the Khat (physical
body), the Ba and Ka were reunited to reanimate the Akh.The reanimation of the Akh
was only possible if the proper funeral rites were executed and followed by constant
offerings. The separation of Akh and the unification of Ka and Ba were brought
about after death by having the proper offerings made and knowing the proper,
efficacious spell, but there was an attendant risk of dying again. Egyptian funerary
literature (such as the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead) were intended to aid
the deceased in "not dying a second time" and becoming an akh.
All this suggests that Egyptians did not have any concept of transmigration or
reincarnation. The rituals of mummification and other rituals strongly pronounce a
belief in judgment after death and bodily resurrection.
Herodotus, Histories 2. 123 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.) says :
"The Egyptians say that Demeter [Isis] and Dionysos [Osiris] are the rulers of the
lower world. The Egyptians were the first who maintained the following doctrine, too,
that the human soul is immortal, and at the death of the body enters into some other
living thing then coming to birth; and after passing through all creatures of land, sea,
and air, it enters once more into a human body at birth, a cycle which it completes in
three thousand years. There are Greeks who have used this doctrine [the Orphics],
some earlier and some later, as if it were their own; I know their names, but do not
record them."
25