ought the soul left the body during sleep. This soul was pictured as vapors that entered and left through the nostrils and mouth. Because ideas about a society that lived so long ago are frequently not concrete and can be difficult for present day culture to grasp, many scholars point towards Hinduism as being one of the earliest religions to offer explanations of reincarnation. Hinduism, originating sometime during the fourth millennium BCE is the most ancient of the surviving great religions (G. de Purucker 12). The adoption of the belief of rebirth can be found in Hindu scriptures dating around 600 BCE. A Hinduism belief is the transmigration of souls, or reincarnation. Associated with this belief is the conviction that all living things are part of the same essence. Individuals pass through cycles of birth and death. This means that an individual soul may return many times in human, animal, or even vegetable form. What a person does in the present life will affect the next life. This is the doctrine of karma, the law of cause and effect. The goal of the individual is to escape this cycle, or wheel of birth and rebirth, so that the individual soul, Atman, may eventually become part of the absolute soul, or Brahman. The caste system of India is another historic characteristic of Hinduism. In its most ancient period Indian society was divided into four classes: priests (or Brahmins), warriors, merchants, and servants. These classes, or castes, have since been subdivided into thousands of subcastes, ranging from the Brahmins at the top to the Untouchables at the bottom. These groups have traditionally been hereditary and have married only among. The characteristics of an Indian caste include rigid, hereditary membership in the caste into which one is born; the practice of marrying only members of the same caste; restrictions on the choice of occupation and on personal contact with members of other castes; and the ...