Note: This article was first published on Mysterious Universe (https://mysteriousuniverse.org/)
Memorial pillars erected in honour of the deceased was a funerary custom followed by many ancient cultures. In India, elaborately carved memorial stones used to be erected in honor of a person who had died in a battle. These stones are called “hero stones” (or “Viragallu” in the Kannada language).
Hero stones had an inscription at the bottom which narrate the act of bravery performed by the deceased, and other details about his life. The inscriptions indicate that the vast majority of these stones date from the 4th century BCE till the 13th century CE, although the custom continued till the 18th century in some parts. The largest concentration of hero stones are in the state of Karnataka, but they are scattered over many adjacent states.
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| Hero stones dating from the 10th century CE, at Bandalike Trimurti Narayanagudi temple, Karnataka. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
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| A couple of hero stones from Karnataka |
What is interesting about the hero stones is that they tell us a story; not only of the events that led to the person’s death, but what is expected to happen afterwards. A typical hero stone has three panels.
The bottom panel depicts the hero engaged in a battle that ultimately led to his death. The battle may have been fought for many reasons. The hero could be fighting a battle for his king, defending his village or community against invaders, protecting the cattle of the village against a cattle-raid, safeguarding the dignity of women, or fighting wild beasts.
The middle panel shows the deceased hero being lifted towards heaven by celestial nymphs called "apsaras", who, in many cases, are accompanied by an entourage of heavenly musicians called "gandharvas". The apsaras and gandharvas figure heavily in Indian legends and architecture, and I shall discuss more about them later.
The top panel shows that the hero has reached the heaven of Indra (Indraloka) where he is seated on a throne and is attended by the apsaras. Or, he has been conducted to the heaven of Shiva (Shivaloka), where he is shown worshiping a "shiva lingam" stone with folded hands. Perhaps, the religious inclinations of a person during his lifetime was used for determining the final destination in the afterlife – Indraloka or Shivaloka.
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| Hero stones showing the deceased hero being escorted to heaven on a vimana. |
Interestingly, in many hero stones, the hero is shown seated inside a “vimana” or flying vehicle, while being guided towards heaven by the apsaras and gandharvas. The vimana ride seems to be a reward – sort of the icing on the cake - for an extraordinary act of valour. An inscription on a hero stone from Soraba, dated 1165 CE, tells us that
“The apsaras carried the hero in a “Pushpaka vimana”, along with belugode (white umbrella), kalasa (water pitcher), kannadi (mirror), torana, suradundubhi (heavenly drum), chamara (fly whisk) and entered Amaravati city to introduce him to the pleasures of the Indraloka.”[1]
Obviously, it seems kind of pointless for the soul of the deceased to travel on a vimana, considering that the soul is free to travel on its own, as many NDE accounts reveal. The “vimana” element in the story was, undoubtedly, added later to further glorify the deceased. I had mentioned in an earlier article that the vimanas described in the ancient Indian legends behave in a manner very similar to how UFOs have been described by eye-witnesses. This suggests that the gandharvas and apsaras could be tied up with the UFO phenomenon.
Some hero stones are quite big, for they have more than one panel describing each of the three stages i.e. the battle, the hero's ascent, and the heavenly abode. One of the largest hero stones found so far is nearly 12 feet high. Perhaps, the chieftains and the rich generals had the resources to have these enormous sculpted stones raised in their honour. The stones were always erected in a prominent spot where the people generally assembled, such as temples, tanks and lakes, so that people could offer their respect to the hero who sacrificed himself for their sake.
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| Large hero stones with multiple panels describing each of the three stages. |
Now let’s move on to the topic of psychopomps. Psychopomps are generally creatures, spirits or angels in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from the Earth to the afterlife. Some of the well-known psychopomps of ancient legends are the Norse Valkyries, who are a host of female figures who guide souls of dead warriors to the god Odin's hall Valhalla, located in Asgard; Hermes, the “messenger of the gods”, who is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, and guides the souls of the deceased to the afterlife; and the finely dressed angelic being Daena of Zoroastrian belief, who guides the good and pure souls over the Chinvat Bridge to paradise.
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| Hermes as a psychopomp leading a deceased woman while Charon waits from them in his boat, Attic funerary lekythos, c.430 BCE. Credit: ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
The hero stones indicate that apsaras and gandharvas played the role of psychopomps in the Indian belief system. But who were the apsaras and gandharvas, and what do we know about them? To put it very simply, the gandharvas were a race of supernatural beings who were expert musicians. They could carry messages between dimensions and entertained the gods in their heavenly court. The apsaras were their consorts, who were captivatingly beautiful and sensuous, and were expert dancers.
This is why, in Indian architecture, apsaras and gandharvas were generally depicted flying through the sky, or playing various kinds of musical instruments and dancing in a group. But, there is a lot more to these intriguing semi-divine beings, which can help us to identify their counterparts in other cultures.
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| A gandharva and an apsara flying across the sky, India. Credit: Nomu420, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Dancing apsaras at the Bayon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia. Credit: Photo Dharma, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons |
In the epic literature of India, such as the Mahabharata, the gandharvas are described as semi-divine beings, who can confound people by casting illusions. They possess esoteric wisdom and foresight, which is why gandharva sages acted as the teachers of royal princes. They were the guardians of the soma plant, who knew how to prepare the soma drink, which the gods loved so much. This is why, the gandharvas played a key role in the Vedic fire sacrifices.
Gandharvas are said to be extremely attractive and radiant beings, and yet, they are not entirely human and possess certain animal characteristics. For instance, gandharvas can have horns, hairy bodies and a tail like a monkey or a horse. The Gandharva sage Tumburu, had the head of a horse, reminding us of the centaurs of Greek legends.
Even though the gandharvas and the apsaras were generally said to spirits of nature who inhabited forests, streams and mountains, it is not explicitly specified where their actual home is. It is likely to be in the subterranean regions, for, in one of the hymns of the Rig Veda (VIII, 66, 5), Indra is celebrated because “he has smitten the Gandharva into the bottomless darkness.”
The apsaras, on the other hand, in addition to their beauty and dancing abilities had other magical traits. They were said to be shape shifters, could become invisible at will, and are associated with fertility and healing. Newly wed couples were blessed by the apsaras and gandharvas, while infertile women prayed to them for children.
In Indonesia, the apsaras are called “bidadari” from the Sanskrit “vidyadhari” which literally means “bearer of knowledge”. It refers to a wise person who can cast spells. Both gandharvas and apsaras have powers illusion and can cast spells that can make people go mad. In other words, they can be both benevolent and malevolent, and you don’t want to rub them up the wrong way.
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| A 12th century sandstone statue of an apsara from Madhya Pradesh, India. Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain. |
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| A pair of Gandharvas flying in with garlands in their hands, to pay homage to the Bharhut Stupa, India. Source: Freer Gallery of Art, CC BY 3.0 |
So what does this tells us? It’s pretty obvious that the gandharvas and apsaras correspond to the elves and fairies of European folklore. Like the gandharva, the elf was a supernatural being, an expert musician and possessed magical powers of illusion, invisibility and shape shifting. Elves were also said to be strikingly attractive - like the gandharvas - and possessed animal traits such as pointed ears. Elves could strike people with illness - mostly sharp, internal pains and mental disorders, particularly epilepsy - just as a gadharva could cast a spell on a person to make him go mad.
The fairies were the strikingly beautiful female companions of the elves. They were known for prescribing cures for various ailments. Medieval legends are full of stories where the fairies passed on the art of making potions to humans. Like the apsaras, the fairies were known for their wisdom and clairvoyance, and prognosticated the future from time to time. They lived in the forest, within hills and mounds and in subterranean chambers.
What the elves and fairies were most fond of doing, however, is singing and dancing, just like the gandharvas and apsaras. The elves and fairies of Norse legends were seen dancing over meadows, particularly at night and on misty mornings. They left a circle where they had danced, called “elf circles” or “fairy rings”. Could that be a possible explanation for the crop circle phenomenon?
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| Dance of the elves and the fairies in a meadow in the twilight, by Nils Blommér, 1850. Source: National Museum, Sweden, Public Domain. |
What this correlation implies is that the psychopomps of different religions are the "faerie folk". That’s right. The Valkyries were fairies, and Hermes was an elf. That's why Hermes was said to be the inventor of music and the designer of the lyre, and why he was associated with fertility and healing.
Many Oriental scholars had connected the sage "Narada" of Hindu legends with Hermes of Greek mythology, since Narada was also a messenger of the gods and an extraordinary gifted musician, who was very proficient on the veena, and often acted as a "trickster", leading men to disputes and quarrels. Incidentally, Narada was also a "Gandharva" sage, and that ties in with my argument that the Gandharvas and elves are the same beings.
In Christianity, the faerie folk came to be known as the “angels”, who served as the “intermediaries” between humans and God and as the “messengers” of God. Angels can also function as our personal “spirit guide” or “guardian angel”, and conduct the souls of the deceased to the otherworld. In Christian art, the angels have been depicted as human-like beings of extraordinary beauty, with wings and brilliant halos – just as the fairies used to be described earlier.
One of the questions that I wondered about is, if psychopomps really escort the souls of the dead, then have they been mentioned in the voluminous reports of Near Death Experiences that are now available?
Now, in general psychopomps are unlikely to be seen in NDEs, since they only said to conduct the souls of gallant heroes who have died in a righteous battle, and we surely can’t have too many NDEs of that kind. Moreover, in a NDE, the person does not really die for his or her time is not yet up. So, a psychopomp – who, presumably, keeps a good track of a person’s lifespan – doesn’t really have any need to make an appearance. Or does he?
In any case, I was curious if psychopomps or angels have been mentioned in NDEs and I came across a paper authored by Dr. Craig R. Lundahl of the Western New Mexico University, titled, “Angels in Near-Death Experiences”.[2] Dr. Lundahl surveyed the published literature of NDE accounts and found a few mentions of angelic beings in NDEs.
In Moody's first case of a childhood NDE, a 9-year old boy was met on the other side by a group of angels whom he described as having no wings, glowing, and seeming to love him very much.
References to angels were mentioned in “Closer to the Light”, a book reporting the findings on childhood NDEs by Melvin Morse and Paul Perry (1990). In this book, Morse and Perry pointed out that many children describe guardian angels who are blond or “all white” who escort them to heaven. For instance, in her NDE, Katie, a 9-year old girl, met Elizabeth, who seemed to Katie to be a guardian angel. Katie entered a tunnel that opened, and through the tunnel came Elizabeth, described by Katie as tall and nice with bright, golden hair. Elizabeth accompanied Katie up the tunnel, where she saw her late grandfather and met several other people, including two new friends. Another child, Dean, had a NDE in which he was transported to heaven by an angel or someone whom he described as about seven feet tall with golden hair and wearing a long white gown with a simple belt tied at the waist.
Dr. Lundahl wrote that “beings of light” had been mentioned by adult near-death experiencers in Raymond Moody’s book “Life After Life” (1975). In that book, Moody wrote that the identification of these beings seemed to vary with the NDEr’s religious background. For example, Moody said, a Jewish person might identify the being of light as an angel, whereas a Christian person might identify the being as Christ. In many cases, the “beings of light” have been identified as a deceased family member such as a parent or grandparent.
The number of cases in which angels have been specifically identified by adult NDErs are limited. In one NDE case identified by Dr. Lundahl, a woman experienced a complete life review, as she approached the bright light, which is one of the key features of a NDE. She recalls,
“I experienced this judgment as I was nearing the bright light. Then I saw someone coming toward me, with many other people behind him. He was an angel who had come to get me. I don't know who he was, but he was someone who had always helped me. We had been familiar with one another for a very long time, and it would have been ridiculous to make an introduction at this point. I was excited and wanted to express my happiness at the relief I felt from the cares of the world, but I was told that I had made some promises and commitments and had been set apart to do some work before this world was. I had accepted a responsibility that would have a great missionary effect. (Sorensen and Willmore, 1988, pp. 89-95)”
In another NDE account, a person was having an Out of Body Experience (OBE), which is the first stage of a NDE. He recalled floating in the air and seeing his own body lying lifeless on the bed. He felt perfectly natural in his new environment. He then said,
“While contemplating this new condition, some thing attracted my attention, and on turning around I beheld a personage, who said: "You did not know that I was here." I replied: "No, but I see you are. Who are you?" "I am your guardian angel; I have been following you constantly while on earth."
I asked: "What will you do now?" He replied: "I am to report your presence, and you will remain here until I return." He informed me, on returning, that we should wait there, as my sister desired to see me, but was busy just at that time. Presently she came. (Johnson, 1920, p. 451)”
In the two adult NDE cases, the guardian angels turned up to advise the person regarding the future course of action. The guardian angel, presumably, also serves as the psychopomp when a person actually dies. In case of the NDE accounts of children, psychopomps escorted the person through the tunnel. This tells us that psychopomps are more likely to turn up in a NDE and escort the soul through the tunnel, if the deceased person is a child. In case of adults, psychopomps or guardian angels are far less likely to appear, and even if they do so, they might simply advise the deceased to return to his or her body.
The ancient belief in psychopomps and spirit guides appear to be corroborated by NDE accounts, which suggests that these beliefs were not just fantasies or superstitions, but may be based on actual events that transpire after death, which, obviously would seem too incredulous to a modern society that has drifted far away from the wisdom of the ancients and are literally scared to death at the very though of death.
This brings up another question: Could we be sharing our planet with various kinds of supernatural beings of magical abilities, who used to be seen in a physical form in earlier times, but have now limited their interactions to simply being our spirit guides and psychopomps?
Not unlikely, in my opinion. It is illogical to think that ancient societies around the world embarked on a grand conspiracy and invented the same kind of fairy tales, simply to fool the future historian. It is possible that the nature of our reality was vastly different in the past, since inter-dimensional contacts were said to be a routine affair in the higher Yugas. Since we are currently on our way out of the Kali Yuga, there could be drastic reality shifts sometime down the line.
References
[1] Rice 1904, Sb.6, taken from "HERO STONES IN MEDIEVAL KARNATAKA AND CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF AFTERLIFE", Kudoha Alumni March 14, 2018, https://kudohaalumni.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/hero-stones-in-medieval-karnataka-and-changing-perceptions-of-afterlife/
[2] Craig R. Lundahl, "Angels in Near-Death Experiences", Journal of Near-Death Studies, 11(1) Fall 1992.
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