Beyond Metempsychosis

About the Book

This Book is a companion volume to my earlier one: REINCARNATION: A Recurring Cycle. While that dealt with concept and belief in the Doctrine in modern times, this new one goes back to prehistoric times, gradually rising to the beginning of current thought process. The modern intellectual literate philosophical society was so engrossed in its own superiority of knowledge that any departure from Judo-Christian-Islamic dogma was considered blasphemy. To nip the evil in the bud therefore became the rule --- in other words ‘Death to the non-believers’. Those guardians of modern religion(s) were ignorant that right in their own backyard the so called primitive tribes faithfully believed what we now call metempsychosis, immortality of soul, birth and rebirth, life before death, life after death, and above all, death is not a terminus; it is merely change of mode of travel through the web of life, SAMSARA. Death is sine qua non for life to continue. If there is no death, there shall be no (re)incarnation, no life.

Since I am dealing with ancient times to go to the roots of the Doctrine of Metempsychosis, of necessity therefore, certain minimum cultural background and ethnography of tribal world had to be covered as background. This part is based on published research work by various authors, supplemented by my own fieldwork and pictures of tribal life taken by me in mid 1950’s as if they are from a bygone era. Indeed they are!

I trust this Book would go some way in placing the rituals and religious philosophy of the tribal world in proper perspective. MNG

About the Author

Mahinder N. Gulati was born in 1931 in a remote village in Punjab (now Pakistan). His early education was in the village Masjid and schooling in Rawalpindi when he passed his Matriculation from the University of Lahore. The Partition of India in 1947 took him to Bangalore as a ‘refugee’ where he joined the Government College. MNG is a retired Colonel from Indian Army Corps of Engineers. While superintending construction of Hindustan-Tibet Road he came in close contact with hundreds of Tibetan refugees in deplorable physical and emotional state, which provided the necessary inspiration for his doctoral studies in Tibetan religion and culture. Now settled in the United States, he is presently engaged in literary works. He has authored nine books* and published a number of articles on topical subjects besides a series of articles on social anthropology for which he did original research in the remote inaccessible Himalayas.