Reincarnation

Theme Overview

Many cultures have myths and legends that tell of heroes or other characters who die and then come back to life. When they reappear, though, it is not as their former selves but as other people, as animals, or even as plants. The concept of reincarnation—the reappearance of a spirit or soul in earthly form—is based on the belief that a person's soul continues to exist after death and can be reborn in another body.

Major Myths

Many world myths and legends feature some form of reincarnation. Ancient Norse kings were regarded as reincarnations of the god Freyr (pronounced FRAY). After the introduction of Christianity to Norway, some people believed the Christian saint Olaf was the reincarnation of an earlier pre-Christian king, also named Olaf.

In the Arctic regions, where animals are critical to survival, the Inuit people believe that animals as well as humans have souls that are reborn. Hunters must perform ceremonies for the creatures they kill so the animal spirits can be reborn and hunted in the future. When a person dies, part of his or her soul will be incarnated in the next baby born into the community. Giving the newborn the dead person's name ensures that the child will have some of the ancestor's qualities.

Buddhist tradition includes a set of tales called the Jatakas (pronounced JAH-tuh-kuhz) that are based on reincarnation. They tell of Gautama Buddha (pronounced BOO-duh) and his various lives, in which he grew wiser and holier as his soul moved from life to life. In one life, Buddha was a hare who sought spiritual growth through fasting. He realized that if a beggar appeared he would have no food to offer, so he decided that he would offer his own flesh. One of the gods came down from heaven and visited the hare in the form of a beggar. The hare willingly hurled himself into a fire to provide a meal for his guest, but the god then saved the hare and painted his image on the moon to honor his spirit of self-sacrifice. On his way to becoming Buddha, Gautama passed through more than five hundred lives that included incarnations as an elephant, a priest, a prince, and a hermit.

The Japanese legend of O-Tei (pronounced OH-TAY) illustrates the haunting appeal of the idea of reincarnation. O-Tei was a young girl engaged to be married. She fell ill, and as she lay dying, she promised her future husband that she would come back in a healthier body. She died, and the young man wrote a promise to marry her if she ever returned. Time passed and eventually he married another woman and had a child.

A Very Long Journey

The Greek historian Herodotus (pronounced heh-ROD-uh-tuhs) recorded ancient Egyptian ideas about reincarnation. The Egyptians, he wrote, believed that the soul passed through a variety of species— animals, marine life, and birds—before once again becoming a human. The entire journey, from the death of a human to rebirth as a human again, took three thousand years. One ancient Egyptian source, the Book of Going Forth by Day, partly supports Herodotus's account. It states that the souls of important individuals can return to earth in the form of creatures, such as the heron or crocodile.

But his wife and child also died. Hoping to heal his grief, the man went on a journey. In a village he had never visited, he stayed in an inn where a girl who looked much like O-Tei waited on him. He asked her name, and speaking in the voice of his first love, she told him that her name was O-Tei. She said that she knew of his promise and had returned to him. Then she fainted. When the girl awoke, she had no memory of her former life or what she had said to the man. The two were married and lived happily together.

Reincarnation in Context

Belief in reincarnation has been shared by a wide variety of peoples, including the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and the Aboriginal people of central Australia. The most complex and influential ideas about reincarnation are found in Asian religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. Cultural groups that believe in reincarnation have different ideas about the way it takes place. Some say that human souls come from a general source of life-giving energy. Others claim that particular individuals are repeatedly reborn in their descendants.

In Australia, most Aborigines believe that human souls come from spirits left behind by ancestral beings who roamed the earth during a mythical period called the Dreamtime. The birth of a child is caused by an ancestral spirit entering a woman's body. The spirit waits in a sacred place for the woman to pass by. After death, the person's spirit returns to the ancestral powers.

According to traditional African belief, the souls or spirits of recently dead people linger near the grave for a time, seeking other bodies— reptile, mammal, bird, or human—to inhabit. Many African traditions link reincarnation to the worship of ancestors, who may be reborn as their own descendants or as animals associated with their clans or groups. The Zulu people of southern Africa believe that a person's soul is reborn many times in the bodies of different animals, ranging in size from tiny insects to large elephants, before being born as a human again. The Yoruba (pronounced YAWR-uh-buh) and Edo of western Africa share the widely held notion that people are the reincarnations of their ancestors. They call boys “Father Has Returned” and girls “Mother Has Returned.”

Reincarnation plays a central role in Buddhism and Hinduism. It also appears in Jainism (pronounced JYE-niz-uhm) and Sikhism (pronounced SEE-kiz-uhm), two faiths that grew out of Hinduism and are still practiced in India. Jainism shares with Hinduism a belief in many gods. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that emphasizes the belief in only one god. It combines some elements of Islam with Hinduism.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all began in India, where the idea of rebirth first appears in texts dating from about 700 bce. They share a belief in samsara—the wheel of birth and rebirth—and karma—the idea that an individual's actions in their current life will determine how they are reborn in their future life. People who have done good deeds and led moral lives are reborn into higher social classes; those who have not are doomed to return as members of the lower classes or as animals. Only by achieving the highest state of spiritual development can a person escape samsara altogether and enter into the state of nirvana, total union with the supreme spirit.

Reincarnation in Art, Literature, and Everyday Life

Reincarnation is still a popular theme in art and literature. Many movies have dealt with the idea of returning to life in a different body, encompassing all genres from horror to comedy. Some notable films that use reincarnation as a central premise include Audrey Rose (1977), Chances Are (1989), and Down to Earth (2001). However, even in modern times, reincarnation is hardly limited to the realm of myth: according to polls conducted in Europe and the United States, about one in five people believe in reincarnation.

Read, Write, Think, Discuss

Few organized religions include the idea of reincarnation as an official part of recognized beliefs, and some even condemn the notion. However, belief in reincarnation is found across members of many different religious groups—even those that dismiss it as contrary to their religious teachings. Why do you think so many people believe in an idea that does not necessarily fit with the official views of their religion? What might be so appealing about reincarnation? Compare the notion of reincarnation with the belief that humans have only one life and one death. What are some of the positives and negatives of each belief?

SEE ALSO Afterlife; Australian Mythology; Buddhism and Mythology; Hinduism and Mythology