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The Kadanë View of the Afterlife

Not surprisingly, Kadanë attitudes about the afterlife reflect several points of view at once. In Kadanë belief, the natural end of a person is extinction, that is, a person’s normal end, without intervention of the gods, is simply for the personality to cease to exist and for the body to decay. In the natural scheme of things, there is no afterlife. The Kadanë view of the human soul does not correspond exactly to (for example) the traditional Judeo-Christian view, so it would not be correct to say that the “soul” dies, rather, a soul, or personality, separate from the body never comes into existence and so vanishes at death.

That understood, however, the Kadanë also believe that ultimate extinction is extremely rare. Certainly they do not anticipate such a fate for themselves or their loved ones. Instead, they expect the intervention of the gods (specifically, Lord Prabaset) to grant them a personal afterlife.

Lord Prabaset, semi-historical last Emperor of the Kadanë, was so loved by the gods for his tireless devotion to peace, justice and the welfare of his people, that, after his untimely death at the hand of his brother in the final battle of the Kadanë Civil War, they saved his wova (a word variously meaning ‘soul, spirit, personality, essence’) from extinction and gave him an eternal afterlife in the kachva kaslathap ‘Good Land’. They also granted to him this same power to rescue the wova of his followers from extinction.

Thus, the average Kadanë expects that, upon death, the Lord Prabaset will call their wova from the body and bring them to live with him in the Good Land and there help in the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, because they have helped in that struggle in this life. Only the most depraved individuals end up receiving, not eternal punishment, but total extinction. The image often invoked is that of a candleflame: when the candle burns down to the nub, the flame of the righteous by divine intervention continues to burn, in a disembodied way, without need for a physical fuel source, for those without Prabaset’s favor, the flame simply goes out.

And it is not difficult to obtain Prabaset’s favor. Prabaset rewards ethical behavior, devotion to the gods, and the correct performance of ritual. No heroic virtues or sacrifices are demanded, and Prabaset’s approval is easily within the reach of anyone. While Prabaset himself is seldom the major personal god of any Kadanë, worship of Prabaset is inextricably connected to worship of any god, and all spiritual devotion (to the Mountain Gods, at any rate) is considered ultimately to be directed to him.

Yet the Kadanë do not consider the body to be an empty shell. Harkening back to the animist origins of Kadanë religion, every living thing is felt to contain a lifeforce, usually called the vahya (which also means ‘breath’). This lifeforce does not entirely dissipate at death, but contains some connection to the being with which it was paired in life. Thus the Kadanë maintain a cult of ancestor worship (in the case of Mountain Gods) and veneration that centers on actual relics of the deceased. For example, at least part of the body of a Mountain God must be physically interred at Mountain Temple to be considered a Mountain God. Relics may also be kept at the tutelary shrine of the Mountain God.

The bodies of ordinary Kadanë are generally cremated; it is believed that this halts simple decay, and the passage of the body through the sacred element of fire transmutes the vahya to a more divine level. The ashes are not stored, but spread on a clan’s ancestral fields, and it is believed their vahya eventually migrates to future generations, through feasting on the products of those fields on Nadarpaborata. This continual recycling of the vahya of the ancestors gives most Kadanë a powerful sense of rootedness, even when they live far from their clan holdings. Another interesting practice is the molding of some of those ashes into clay objects called yaktaretls, which are then placed in the tunnels of Mountain Temple. This puts the deceased in a special relationship with the Mountain Gods, and gives them special powers of protection over their still-living clan members.

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