Reincarnation is a key belief within Hinduism. In Hinduism, all life goes through birth, life, death, and rebirth and this is known as the cycle of samsara. According to this belief, all living things have an atman, which is a piece of Brahman, or a spirit or soul. It is the atman that moves on into a new body after death.

An atman can go into the body of any living thing, such as a plant, animal or human. Once a living being dies, its atman will be reborn or reincarnated into a different body depending on its karma from its previous life. For example, if a person has good karma in a previous life, then their atman will be reborn or reincarnated into something better than they were previously. A person gains good karma for doing good things in life, such as helping others through following their dharma.
A Hindu’s ultimate goal in life is to reach moksha. Moksha means liberation or freedom from samsara and it can only happen after a Hindu has been reborn many times. If a Hindu gains good karma from many lifetimes, they will have gained ultimate knowledge and have freed themselves from the constraints of the material world. Once this happens, a Hindu’s atman no longer needs to be reborn into another being and is ready to be free from samsara. As a result, the atman will achieve moksha and will be rejoined with Brahman.
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the nonphysical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death.[1][2] Resurrection is a similar process hypothesized by some religions, in which a soul comes back to life in the same body. In most beliefs involving reincarnation, the soul is seen as immortal and the only thing that becomes perishable is the body. Upon death, the soul becomes transmigrated into a new infant (or animal) to live again. The term transmigration means passing of soul from one body to another after death.

Reincarnation (Punarjanman) is a central tenet of the Indian religions such as Buddhism, most Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and most Paganism. Although there are Hindu and Pagan groups who do not believe in reincarnation, instead believing in an afterlife. In various forms, it occurs as an esoteric belief in many streams of Judaism in different aspects, in some beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and some Indigenous Australians (though most believe in an afterlife or spirit world). A belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by Greek historical figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, as well as in various modern religions.

Although the majority of denominations within Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manichaenism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research. In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation, and many contemporary works mention it.

The word reincarnation derives from a Latin term that literally means 'entering the flesh again'. Reincarnation refers to the belief that an aspect of every human being (or all living beings in some cultures) continues to exist after death. This aspect may be the soul or mind or consciousness or something transcendent which is reborn in an interconnected cycle of existence; the transmigration belief varies by culture, and is envisioned to be in the form of a newly born human being, or animal, or plant, or spirit, or as a being in some other nonhuman realm of existence.

An alternative term is transmigration, implying migration from one life (body) to another. The term has been used by modern philosophers such as Kurt Gödel and has entered the English language.

The Greek equivalent to reincarnation, metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις), derives from meta ('change') and empsykhoun ('to put a soul into'),[18] a term attributed to Pythagoras.Another Greek term sometimes used synonymously is palingenesis, 'being born again'.

Rebirth is a key concept found in major Indian religions, and discussed using various terms. Reincarnation, or Punarjanman (Sanskrit: पुनर्जन्मन्, 'rebirth, transmigration'), is discussed in the ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, with many alternate terms such as punarāvṛtti (पुनरावृत्ति), punarājāti (पुनराजाति), punarjīvātu (पुनर्जीवातु), punarbhava (पुनर्भव), āgatigati (आगतिगति, common in Buddhist Pali text), nibbattin (निब्बत्तिन्), upapatti (उपपत्ति), and uppajjana (उप्पज्जन).




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