Life and Afterlife?

Do you believe in afterlife? Is there a life after death? Perhaps you have faith in reincarnation. Or may be you won't even accept that there is any life after death – a permanent and blissful realm of pure nothingness!

Unfortunately, no religion will give a clear and credible answer to this important question. Even science is a bit vague on the subject. There is even a “scientific” study that says the soul weighs exactly 21 grams!

In general, most religions suggest that some sort of afterlife awaits people when they die. Hindus and Buddhists tend to believe in reincarnation. Other religious traditions including the Abrahamic religions hold the view that the afterlife will resolve justice by assigning rewards and punishments to people according to how they lived their lives. Agnostics hold the position that like the existence of God, life after death is unverifiable and therefore unknowable. Atheists, humanists, and post-humanists generally do not believe in the existence of soul or that there is any life after death.

Of all the people ever inhabited this planet, the Ancient Egyptians had the strongest and vividly colourful beliefs in after life. They made the most elaborate arrangements and preparations for a comfortable and unpertubed life after death. They firmly believed that people have more than a body and a soul to be taken care of after death – there are six constituent parts to human life: the Ha (living human body), the Sheut (shadow), the Ren (name), the Ib (heart), the Ba (soul or personality), and the Ka (life force). It would have been considered rude if you had said “May his Ba rest in peace” to the kin of a dead Ancient Egyptian!

Death occurs when Ka leaves the body. Elaborate ceremonies were conducted by priests to preserve the body and to restore a person's physical abilities in death. The idea was to prepare for the unification of the Ba with the Ka in the afterlife. The rewards in afterlife were not easy to come by. First and foremost, it requires a heart free of sins. Also, you should be able to recite the chants, passwords, and formulae of the Book of the Dead. In the Hall of Two Truths, the deceased's heart was weighed against the feather of truth and justice taken from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at. If the heart was lighter than the feather then they could pass on, but if it were heavier they would be devoured by the demon Ammit.

Egyptians also believed that being mummified was the only way to have an afterlife. Only if the corpse had been properly embalmed and entombed in a mastaba, could the dead live again and accompany the Sun on its daily ride. The belief was so strong that the Pharaohs built enormous tomb and temple complexes and filled them with great riches to ensure a calm and peaceful eternal afterlife.

In October 2007, my wife and I made a pilgrimage to some of these ancient Egyptian monuments that still remain majestically as examples of this ancient belief system - the temples in Luxor, tombs at the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, several temple complexes in Upper Egypt and the grandest of them all at the Pyramids of Giza.

Some consider Ramesses II as Egypt's greatest and most powerful pharaoh. He was born ca. 1300 BC and ruled Egypt for nearly 66 years. He constructed several grandiose monuments - including the rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel (length: 56.4 m, height 27.5 m, the four colossal statues of the king in front of it - cut from the living rock - are 18.3 m high). He also added to the temple of Amenhotep III at Luxor and completed the hall of columns at Karnak - still the largest columned room of any building in the world. There are more statues of him in existence than of any other Egyptian pharaoh. He used art as a means of propaganda and his victories over foreigners are depicted on numerous temple reliefs.

When he died, the mummified body of Ramesses II was laid in a tomb cut into the limestone rocks in a remote dried-up river valley on the west side of the Nile in Luxor, now called the Valley of the Kings. The tomb walls were painted and sculpted with splendid murals depicting scenes of daily life and offerings to gods. The chambers were filled with treasures – everything from furniture to food, statues of servants, boats and jewels - all that is needed to ensure a smooth and comfortable life into eternity.

Sadly, the ancient gods could not assure him a tranquil resting place or a gentle transition into an eternal afterlife. Millennia later, the modern grave diggers, including several states, invaded the tombs and took away the treasures. The mummy of Ramesses II is now moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo along with several mummies of other great pharaohs and queens of the New Kingdom.

Nowadays, thousands of tourists irreverently flock to these galleries every morning - some pause for a few moments to reflect on the glory and grandeur of that bygone era; others gawk and scramble on without ever realizing who these great souls were!

Imagine for a moment - if these great men had the slightest inkling that they will end up in a crowded museum hall as objects of derision and scorn, would they ever have contemplated building any of those magnificent monuments?

Superstition has its value, after all!