TRANSMIGRATION of the soul is believed in by all Buddhists and all Hindus. The Egyptians maintained that, after death, the immortal soul migrated into the bodies of birds, beasts, or fishes, and other animals, and that the gods took refuge in the bodies of animals, from the wickedne.ss and violence of men.. Pythagoras, and after him Empedokles, adopted these doctrines, and, accord ing to Heraclides, Pytha,goras used to say of him self that he remembered not only what men, but what plants and animals, he had passed through. Pythagoras also said he remembered that he had inhabited four bodies, and it is he to whom Virgil alludes in the lines— Ipse nam nemini, Trojani tempore belli, Penthoides, Euphorbus, eram.' Ernpedokles likewise declared of himself that he had been first a boy, then a girl, then a plant, a, bird, and fish.
The Greeks and Celts worshipped Apollo under the title of Carneios, which, according to Theo critus, is derived from Carnos, who, having prophesied the misfortunes to the Heraclides in their inroads on the Peloponnesus, one of them, called Hippotes, slew him. One of the titles of Krishna, the Hindu Apollo, is Carna, the radiant,' from Carna, a ray ; and when heled the remains of the Hericula in company with Baldeva (the god of strength) and Yudishtra, after the great international war, into the Peloponnesus of Sau rashtra, they were attacked by the aboriginal Bhil, one of whom slew the divine Carna with an arrow. The Bhil claim to be Hyvansa, or of the race of Hya, whose chief seat was at Maheswar on the Nerbadda. The assassin of Car= would consequently be Hyputa, or descendant of Hya. As Krishna lay dying, he bid the Bhil not to be distressed, as he (Krishna) had slain the Bhil in a former birth.
The Bards of the martial Rajput races say that there are two distinct places of reward, the one essentially spiritual, the other of a material nature. The Bard inculcates that the warrior who falls in battle in the fulfilraent of his duty, who abandons life through the wave of steel,' will know no second birth,' but that the uncon fined spark dote) will reunite to the parent orb.' The doctrine of transmigration through a variety of hideous forms, may be considered as a series of • purgatories. The aim of a Hindu's life is to r2ake sure that it be the last of him. For it is virtual, if not defined and acknowledged, annihila tion that the Hindu strives after ; it is the destruction of consciousness, of individuality, of all the attributes and circumstances which make up what we call life.
In Buddhism, one of the established laws is the belief in metempsychosis, or the migration of the souls of animated beings.
The traditions of the Buddhists of the present day claim for Sakya, the Buddha, a recollection of 510 migrations.
In the Tibetan Buddhist creed, the doctrine of transmigration is shown, and final absorption into Buddha. is put forward as the reward of a vir tu. ous life. There has been some,misapprehen men regarding the Buddhas and Bodhisatwas, the regeneration of the Grand Lama being considered as an exceptional case of a Buddha returning amongst mankind. Mr. Hodgson truly calls the divine Lamas of Tibet Arhanta, but he believes that a very gross superstition has wrested the just notion of the character to its own use, and so created the immortal mortals, or present palpable divinities of Tibet.' In the Nouv. Jour. Asiat. xiv. p. 408, ii., Fra Orazio says that Lama sempre sara coll' istessa anima del medesime Ciangc'iub, oppure in altri corpi.' Remusat was not aware of this fact when he stated les Lamas du Tibet se considerent eux-memes comme autant de divinites (Bouddhas) incarnees pour le saint des homes.' But the explanation which Major Cun ningham received in Ladakh, which is the same as that obtained by Fra Orazio in Lhassa, is simple and convincing. The Grand Lama is only a re generated Bodhisatwa, who refrains from accept ing Buddhahood that he may continue to be born again and again for the benefit of mankind. For a Buddha cannot possibly be regenerated, and hence the famous epithet of Sathagatha, thus gone,' and Sugata, well gone,' or gone for ever.
Tibetans believe in six forms in which a living being may be re-born, viz. Lha, Deva, SANSK., spirits or gods ; Mi, or men ; Lha iMayin, or evil spirits ; Dudo or Johsong, brutes, beasts ; Yidaga, imaginary monsters ; and as the inmates of Nyalba or hell, or Naraka. All Hindus believe in the transmigration of souls. The fact of transmi gration none of their systems dispute ; it is allowed by all ; as a man casts off his old garments, and puts on new ones, so that soul having left its old mortal frame, enters into a,nother which is new.' This is based on the philosophic belief that the soul has a separate existence. There are, how ever, various opinions.—Oriental Linguistic Studies,. Hodgson • Sonnerat's Voyage ; Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes ; _lphinstone's India; _Bunsen's Egypt; Tod's Rajasthan ; Tennent's Christianity.