In the ancient Vedic belief in the hereafter, the deceased person comes as a spirit into
a paradisiacal heaven or into the netherworld or wanders about the earth as a ghost.
With time, the notion took form that the soul of the deceased must wander,
from the cremation over the moon into paradise or with the rain from the moon back to earth.
Gradually, the notion of re-birth becomes more and more abstract and is elaborated philosophically.
Decisive for re-incarnation is the deceased person’s “karman” (Sanskrit “deed”), at first this is the sacrifice performed, later it takes on the meaning of “moral action”.
At the end of the cycle of rebirth (samsara), marked by the moral and spiritual purification of the soul, comes liberation (moksha).
