¹ Cf. Herodotus, ii. 123; Lucretius, De Return Natura, iii. 843—61. In common with ancient historians and philosophers, Herodotus (ii. 171) refuses to divulge, in a literal manner, the higher or esoteric teachings of the Mysteries of Antiquity:

‘On this lake [within the sacred precinct of the temple at Sais] the Egyptians perform by night the representation of his adventures [i.e. the symbolic adventures touching the birth, life, death, and regeneration of Osiris—’ whose name’, writes Herodotus, *I consider it impious to divulge’], which they call Mysteries. On these matters, however, though accurately acquainted with the particulars cf them, I must [as an initiate] observe a discreet silence. So, too, with regard to the Mysteries of Demeter [celebrated at Eleusis, in Greece], which the Greeks term "The Thcsmophoria", I know them [asan initiate], but I shall not mention them, except so far as may be done without impiety [or done lawfully].’

It has now been proven by archaeological and other research that the Mysteries consisted of symbolic dramatic performances open only to initiates and neophytes fit for initiation, illustrating the universally diffused esoteric teachings concerning death and resurrection (i.e. rebirth); and that the doctrine of transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies—if depicted at all—was not intended to be taken (as it has been taken by the uninitiated literally, but symbolically as in Plato’s Republic, detailed reference to which follows herein. Cf. Herodotus, ii. 122.)

Herodotus in the last—mentioned passage gives a symbolic account of the descent into Hades and the return to the human world of King Rhampsinitus, in whose honour the priests of Egypt therefore instituted what was probably— when rationally interpreted—a rebirth festival. The most ancient recorded parallel now known exists in the Rig Vada Manjala x, Sukta 135), wherein, as Sayana in his Commentary in the Atharva Veda (xix) seems to explain, the boy mentioned is the same as the boy Nachiketas of the [ Taiitiriya] Brahmana, who went to the realm of Yara a, the King of the Dead, in Yama—Loka, and then returned to the realm of men. That this primeval Hades legend was interpreted esoterically as teaching a rebirth doctrine is confirmed by the ancient Katha Upanishad, the story of Nachiketas being used therein as a literary vehicle to convey the highest Vedäntic teachings concerning birth, life, and death. (Cf. Katha Upanishad, ii. 5 ; iii. 8, 15; iv. 10—11; vi. 18.)

Preserved in an Old Javanese MS. of the fourteenth century is a very similar Hades legend in which the Yaksha Kunjarakarna is commanded by the Lord Vairöchana ‘to go to Yama’s kingdom to see what is prepared for all evil—doers’. Peculiar interest attaches to this version, because it records a doctrine—akin to that referred to by Ihe Greek and Roman writers—of thousand—year periods of transmigration into plants, animals, and defective human beings, prior to rebirth in a human body free from karmic blemishes. It mentions, too, that from Yama’s kingdom Pürnavijaya was recalled to human life. (Cf. The Legend of Kunjarakarna, translated from the Dutch of Prof. Kern by Miss L. A. Thomas, in the Indian Antiquary, Bombay, 1903, vol. xxxii, pp. 111—97.)