Metempsychosis

or Transmigration. The Greek term signifies the pa age of the soul to another body; and the Latin its “migration.” The belief common to most early peoples was however very hazy. Our forefathers believed that old women could change into cats or hares (see Rivers of Life, ii, p. 281), and this idea, which lies at the base of much Greek and Indian philosophy, is found in its earliest crude forms in the beast worship of Egypt, and in what is commonly called Totemism in Africa, Australia, and America (see Animal Worship), savages supposing that chiefs and ancestors, after a human life, transmitted their souls into the bodies of beasts or of plants. There is no allusion to this belief in Vedik hymns, but it appears later among Vedanta scholars as part of the doctrine of Immortality.