The Region of the departed
In the Memories of past lives, we learnt about the immortality of the soul and its distinctness from the body and about the child prodigies, which vindicate the beliefs in previous incarnations and rebirths. You may also like this other story here from a different author on this same topic. Taken from the book Science & Religion by Param Pujya Panyas Chandrashekar Vijayji Marasaheb.
There are so many other riddles which arise consequent upon these phenomena of pre-and-re incarnations viz. If soul as a trailing cloud, comes from somewhere and is reborn on this earth, and if, after death on this planet, he migrates to other realm?
Now the Jain philosophy has the answers which had anticipated these embarrassments to thinking human minds. They have mentioned four fundamental categories of births. They are:
1. The category of Dev (heavenly beings)
Dev are those who are advanced species in many respects; they dwell above and below the earth, are more prosperous than us, possessing more means of pleasures, having longer lives, shining bodies, extraordinary powers etc
The souls who has knowingly or otherwise done some good deeds or has patiently suffered in life, goes generally to this region of Dev after he ends his pilgrimage on this earth.
2. The category of humans,
Man obviously means human being like ourselves.
3. The category of Narak (hellish beings)
In this state of ‘narak’, which is the place of several ills, pains and misfortunes, there are seven grades of regions located below the earth. The pains multiply in succession rising from the lower to the higher region.
They are fated to experience not only tortures of the place but also of mutual assaults and violence. The astonishing fact however, is that the souls in “narak” are doomed to long life and cannot even die even if their bodies are cut through tortures or mutual fights. They die only at the appointed hour of death until which even the death-dealing blows cannot liberate them from the tribulations of hellish existence.
4. The category of birds and beasts
‘Tiryanch’ (the species of birds and beasts etc.) category is marked by absolute dependence and helplessness. Animals like dogs, cats, lions, serpents, birds, etc. all these come under this category of ‘Tiryanch’.
The souls who, while on the earth, had never done any good deed but had indulged in schemeings and deceits go to the ‘Tiryanch’ state (animal world) where they suffer pains due to dependence.
Liberated
The fifth category is not of birth but of the upward movement of the omniscient humans to the region of released souls after death. It is the “Siddhagati”. Only human life is blessed with the chances or possibilities of doing good deeds. The souls who in human form attain to saintliness and thereafter are alive to their own as well as to the other’s wellbeing, get rid of the influence of the evil “karmic” atoms clung to them and attain to the state of ‘siddhas’.
Thus, according to the Jain philosophy, it is an acknowledged fact that the two movements to the species, humans (‘manushya’) and of the birds and beasts etc. (‘tiryanchs’) are visible to us on the earth. The other two movements to the species of gods, hellish being and the third movement to the regions of ‘sidhas’ as invisible. They are not fictitious but are definite facts.
The world of science has no difficulty in giving recognition to the categories of ‘manushya’ (man) and tiryanch’ species, since they are demonstrable. But they are never in a mood to accept the remaining three states of Dev, hellish beings and of the ‘siddhas’ which, in their opinion, are mere imagination or myths.
DEVALOK AND PRETALOK
Both the terms, “Devalok” and “Pretalok” mean the same thing. Whether you name it as the realm of Gods (heavens) or the realm inferior to the state of Gods according to the Jains connote the same thing. The Jain philosophers have made the point simple by stating that really the main state is “Devalok’ (the heavens) but compared with this, there is another inferior state which the common man or say the modern man thinks of it as just ‘Pretalok’ — the region of the departed souls only.
The ‘Devas’ (souls akin to us gifted with excellent means of pleasures in abundance which are ordinarily denied to generality of mankind but not the Supreme Lord) have two categories,
1. The higher type is identified as “Devas” and
2. The inferior or lower is called “Pretas”.
The Pretas, though departed from this life, retain the pull within themselves towards this earth and desire to visit us, even relinquishing the joys of their existence in their habitat if they have retained their indulgences in some worldly things or desires or if they did cherish any special attachment or hatred towards any specific person on this earth, at the moment of their exit from this life. The usual haunts of such inferior spirits are some subterranean dare recesses or some trees, dark depths, mountains, caves etc. on the earth.
In the modern world there are people who believe that death alone is the main feature or fact of our existence. That beyond death, it is all void. But even amongst them there are some who continue to believe in the fact of ‘Pretalok’.
Sometimes believers commit an agreement among themselves that whoever of them would die first should return here with information about the life hereafter for the benefit of their survivors. The world is in possession of actual records of episodes which are startling!!
EPISODES POSING THE REALITY OF THE AFTER LIFE
DUCHESS OF MAZARIN AND MADAME DE BEAU CLAIR
It is said there was very deep intimacy between the most charming Duchess of Mazarin, who was one of the beloved mistresses of King Charles II of Britain and one Madame De Beau Clair who was the beloved of James II, the brother of King Charles II
Both these renowned beauties of Britain lived together and shared mutual company in the royal palace. Strangely enough the main topic of their interest and discussion used to be life after death, the state of one’s soul, etc. Now they became so concerned about this subject, that they seriously pledged to each other that whoever of them were to die first should return to the earth and inform the survivor of the actual state of things in the life hereafter (the “Pretalok”).
The Duchess of Mazarin died first. Madame Beau Clair patiently waited for many years in expectation of the reappearance of the spirit of the departed Duchess, but when the departed soul failed to appear even after such a long time, the Madame came to believe that the soul’s immortality is baseless and false. But after some time when Madame Beau Clair herself was nearing her end, she had, a few days before her death, confided with her nearest friends the fact that she was visited by the ghost of the Duchess in her own bedroom. She had actually seen Duchess with her own eyes. Of course her arrival was sudden and quite unexpected after so many years since her death. She told her friends that that the ghost was levitating instead of walking on the floor. (Compare this with the statements in the Jain Agamas about the gods’ levitations.) The Madame was surprised when he heard the Duchess telling her that they would meet again in the heavens that day between 12:00 and 1:00 at night. Saying so, the ghost disappeared. Indeed, prophesy came true. Madame De Beauclair passed away that night at 12:30.
Note: This whole episode has been narrated in “The History of Rebellion” by first Earl of Clarendon.
WILLIAM SMELLIE AND WILLIAM GREENLAW
William Smellie, the President of the University of Edinburgh and the celebrated author of “The Philosophy of Natural History”, who died in 1785, had deep friendship with a young Christian Bishop by the name William Greenlaw. William Greenlaw, who disbelieved the immortality of the soul had resigned his post in the church. Greenlaw never gave in and was firm in his rejection of the soul’s immortality etc. Once they ended their controversy in an agreement or truce which was signed in blood by both of them. The agreement was worded that whoever of the two died first should return to the survivor and enlighten him on the realm of the departed souls, their conditions, etc.
Now, Greenlaw died first on the 26th June, 1774. Greenlaw had agreed, before his death, to revisit his friend Smellie on the first anniversary of his own death. Smellie, who remembered this pledge was wide awake on the night of his friend’s first death anniversary and even of the successive nights for a few days since then. Greenlaw had failed to appear but all of a sudden one night, quite unexpectedly, Greenlaw’s white ghost was seen by Smellie to whom the spirit began to talk in all seriousness: “The journey back to the earth is quite unbearable. (This reminds us of the statements in the Agamas that the foul smell of the human excreta etc. from the earth pervades the space upwards upto 400 ‘yojanas’ i.e. more than 3000 miles, which deters gods from ordinarily descending to the earth.) The life in heavens is a thousand times grander and better than the life on the earth; and the inhabitants of the heavens do aspire for admissions to realms, higher and more divine than the heavens themselves.” (Even this fact has been clearly corroborated in the Jain Agamas which have recorded that there are higher levels of existence even in the ‘Devalok’ as a result of which, the lower categories of the gods are suffering from jealousies for the prosperity of their superior compeers.)
Greenlaw commented upon his extra-mundane life like this to Smellie and the ghost disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
Reference:
LADY ELIZABETH AND ROBERT NELSON
There lived in the eighteenth century England a pious woman named Lady Elizabeth Hastings. The celebrated Bishop Robert Nelson and Lady Elizabeth were mutually pledged, as we have seen in similar other instances, that whoever of the two died earlier should enlighten the other survivor on the state of life hereafter. Of this pair of friends, Nelson died first. A few days after Nelson’s death, Elizabeth started suffering from cancer. Her pain was so unbearable that she constantly prayed for death and she also showed her documents of agreement between her and Nelson to her brother, the Earl of Huntingdon.
Six days before the death of Lady Elizabeth, Nelson’s spirit visited her at four o’clock in the early hours of morning. The maid-servant attending Elizabeth had seen it. When she saw Nelson’s spirit seated in the chair right near her mistress’ bed, she was seized with horror and ran out. With courage she returned to the room after a long interval and looked at the empty chair. After this event Lady Elizabeth told her and all her relations and friends, “Nelson came and informed me that my death is very near, i.e. within six days.” And Oh, the wonder! Elizabeth did not live beyond the sixth day!
Note: This story had been published in “Tatler”, the magazine edited by the famous writer Addison in England
LORD TYRONE AND LADY BRADFORD
Lord Tyrone and Lady Bradford lived in Ireland in the 18th century. They were brought up together and had intimate common thinking on matters pertaining to spiritualization. They also, like all the other previous pairs known to us by now, had concluded an agreement about the existence of the life hereafter and the conditions of the soul dwelling there. She was married to a nobleman the Earl of Bradford. After a few years since her marriage, one morning she came downstairs from her bedroom, with a black silk ribbon tied on her wrist. When Earl Bradford asked her the reason of this ribbon, she bluntly refused to divulge it.
Within an hour after this, a letter arrived informing them of the death of Lord Tyrone. After many years when Lady Bradford was on her deathbed, she told her son, “Lord Tyrone has fulfilled our agreement by presenting himself to me. He has convinced me of the existence of the life hereafter.”
Are these instances not enough to convince us of the truth of the existence of “Pretalok”, the life after death? Thus, we have enough evidence to prove the validity of these things supported by the Jain Agamas. As we study them, we are bound to bow down before them and the holy Jineshwaras, who had foreseen and prophesized these mysteries and had fore stated the discoveries of science.
