Written by Nilay Aundhe
Death has been fantasized and represented in various forms since the very beginning of the human race. We see scriptures and the corresponding beliefs of the people of the era. So, what is death? Is it just the next phase of existence that we must go through? Or is it definite, an end to the wonderful beginning?
The concept of an afterlife started with the magical days of the Egyptians. The days when shapes had meaning and erecting giant structures for the dead was the ‘in’ thing. Having mummified the dead body, with a quick remove-all-organs procedure, they placed a lot of food and jewelry in the pyramids of the kings. The afterlife, in their opinion, was a mirror image of the real world. And the souls were at peace if they were deemed to be good people. If otherwise…. Well, don’t worry about that.
For a soul to reach the afterlife, it had to travel through the underworld, called Duat in the sun God’s barge, and open specific gates at specific times, chanting specific spells. The Sun god, Ra, would flow through the underworld every night and reappeared in the real world as a rising sun signifying reincarnation. Of course, this is not the only time humans thought of reincarnation as a real thing.
The times changed. The winds began moving towards Europe. The sweet music of the 9 muses started flowing from the tops of Mt. Olympus. The time of Greeks was here and with it, a major change in the afterlife. Hades, the god of the dead bringing about diversification in the workings of the underworld. But, the Greeks were not only known for an unusual number of affairs between gods and mortals or how many important decisions were taken by the roll of dice, it was also a period where philosophy began developing. And questions of ethics, moral dilemmas and yes, immortality were a frequent conversation.
It was Pythagoras who started thinking about the immortality of the soul. He believed that the soul travels from one body to another, not necessarily human. This led to him believing that even animals have souls in them.
Then came Socrates and Plato. In Plato’s book Phaedo, he gives a complete account of the day Socrates died. According to the book Phaedo, Socrates conducted himself in a very calm and cheerful manner on the last day of his life, which seemed a little weird to his followers. When asked about this, Socrates went on to explain this by saying his soul is immortal. He then proceeds to give four arguments for the immortality of the soul, which are the Cyclical Argument, the Theory of Recollection, the Argument from Affinity, and finally the Argument from Forms of Life.
Both of these had a huge impact on Plato. He concludes his book, The Republic with a legend called Myth of Er. According to Plato, a person will always choose to lead a different, completely opposite life, i.e., a good person may choose to be bad but a bad person will try to use every chance to be better. With this, he is shouting (metaphorically) that a philosophic life allows better choices when presented with options for a new life. And that philosophic virtues always work to one’s advantage. These arguments have been pondered over by philosophers from time to time.
The study and thinking of death did not end there though. It went on through the Roman era, the peaceful period of Indus Valley Civilization, right through from the introduction of Christianity in Rome by Constantine, the Mayans, the bloodthirsty period of Aztecs, and even to this day, we see a lot of great literature trying pondering over the same question. Not only philosophical works, but many meanings can also be derived from poems, novels, movies, TV shows, games, theatre, etc.
Poems like Do Not Go Gentle Into The Good Night by Dylan Thomas and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson try to portray the mortality of life and immortality of the soul. Books like The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy where Tolstoy asks whether an unreflective man can confront his one and only moment of truth? And many movies and TV shows like The Good Place which re-enacts the Myth of Er in a different way and shows how it will work out.
All these amazing people, story writers, authors, actors, poets, and thinkers have tried to look at death from a perspective that has never been thought of before. These people have tried to find out more of an entire phase of existence and thought of how ethics and dilemmas will work out on literally one of the topics which are thought of as a simple phenomenon by millions of others.
Even with all this, we are no close to finding out, or theorizing, how the sweet hands of Death feel like. Is Death an animal, who comes out of its den to devour your soul? Is Death an old friend, who greets Ignotus Peverell during his last breath? How and when Death will come, we never know. Some of these questions we may never find an answer to. And some things in life don’t have an answer. Weirdly, that makes death the only constant in life. And it is the knowledge that life will end that gives it meaning.
While thinking about this, I am reminded of dialogue in Kung Fu Panda —
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