Raikothlin view a human soul not as an object but as a question the divine asks itself. This question is different for each person, and it operates on a level higher than ordinary thought - that is, it cannot be put into words in any human language. A human life is the process of answering this question by discovering new knowledge, creating new things, and feeling new emotions. A human can know how far ze has progressed in answering this question only by looking at zir own life: a person who is successful, spiritually fulfilled, and hay is probably on the right track.
Since a human life is not viewed as an object good in itself but as a process useful for achieving a goal, Raikothlin views about death are somewhat different than our own. Death is the natural response to successfully answering the question that forms one's life. One should fear death only insofar as one has not yet completed one's task.
Suicide is a common cause of death in Raikoth. Old people who feel they have settled the matter of their life to their own satisfaction and who consider sticking around a waste of their time undergo the ritual of niphlokas, freely chosen death. After a goodbye party with their friends and family, they wrap wreaths of flowers around their head and neck and jump off a cliff into the ocean. About one-quarter of Raikothlin die this way.
The most important death-related custom is the kasapsid, or deathbook. Every Raikothlin should, before dying, write a book that summarizes their life. Not a biography, per se, but a list of the lessons they've learned, a summary of the wisdom they've accumulated, their own unique thought processes, and their advice for the young. Most people write several, one when young, in case they die prematurely; another when middle-aged, for the same reason; and a final one when they are old and feel death approaching. Each previous deathbook is destroyed when superseded by a new one.
When a person completes a deathbook, he gives it to the local Temple of Truth, which hides it in a vault. The book is revealed only after the person's death, when it is put on the library shelves next to the books of all other Raikothlin who have died in that city. In accordance with the Raikothlin custom of identifying a person more with the contents of zir mind than with zir physical body, after death a person's name comes to refer to zir deathbook. So it would be perfectly correct to say "I am going to the library to read Nithi today" when you mean "Nithi's deathbook." After death, the person himself is never referred to by name alone, but with a suffix, for example "Nithinomai", meaning something like "lost, respected Nithi."
Each deathbook has a number, marking the order of the person's death. The prophet Coriolander was the first Raikothlin to write a deathbook, so he gets number one. There is a complex system between cities to standardize deathbook numbers, so every Raikothlin knows exactly how many people have died between Coriolander and any specific dead person. Deathbooks are arranged in the library based on the person's number.
Because of the lack of interest in physical bodies, there are no strong traditions about disposal of corpses. In the most northerly cities, especially Taras and Sidhli, relatives cremate bodies; it is too difficult to bury anything in permafrost, and there is too much chance of the bodies remaining intact and undecomposed. In more southerly cities, the body is put directly into the ground, without a coffin, in order to return its components to the soil and the circle of life.
In Kalen, known for its orchards, a special tradition is practiced. The body is burnt or buried as previously described, but the brain is separated first. The brain is then planted in the ground with an apple seed inside of it. Over the years, the seed uses the nutrients in the brain to grow into a fruit tree. The prophet Coriolander was the first to choose burial in this way, and it has become popular among his most zealous followers. The fruit from Coriolander's own tree (which still blooms) is considered to be powerful magic, and his priests auction it off yearly and donate the proceeds to charity.
[maybe I stole this idea from this comic, but I don't care. It's still a good idea.]
No one marks the spot where bodies or ashes are buried, again out of lack of concern with physical remains. However, the spot where the person died is (when convenient) marked by painted a special symbol upon it in purple paint (the color of death). The symbol is a circle, with the letters NYTA ASYT written around the circumference and the stylized number of the deathbook written in the center.
NYTA ASYT (acronym in English - will eventually change to Kalasperelin) is an acrostic taking the first letters of a poem of Coriolander's referring to death:
As is evident from the poem, Raikothlin have some views on life after death - but they are fuzzy and indistinct. Coriolander wrote on the difference between erasing a question and answering it: an erased question is simply gone, whereas an answered question exists in a passive, unchanging state of perfection. According to his works, life after death is in the state of an answered question; the answer may be either a good one or an unsatisfying one depending on the quality of the life lived.Nothing ever will be lost to ye
Ye will dwell again in Shinomai
Truth and Beauty will dwell next to ye
And all will be at peace
All is not as it appears to be
Seek in things the secret symmetry
Ye are tesselated endlessly
Through worlds more real than these
More explicit are Raikothlin views on reincarnation. Any part of the original question that remains incompletely answered, or answered in a way that is ambiguous or unsatisfying, remains open in the divine mind. The divinity will eventually incorporate those aspects of that question into other human lives, which connects them with the lives of humans who have already died. This is not classic reincarnation of entire humans, but it is a way in which parts of one human soul can be "recycled" into another.
Those people who, while still alive, answer their question so completely as to annhilate all traces of doubt cease being distinct personalities and become avatars of the divine mind in general. Known as the utheyethi, "those who have no name", they tend to live as holy hermits in the wilderness or the Cold Waste. Some commit niphlokas; others remain for inscrutable purposes of their own.
Utheyethi have the power to deliberately choose to reincarnate themselves completely and with at least partial memory of their past lives, similar to what the Dalai Lama does today. Generally, utheyethi never use this power, as their purpose for living is over and they have no reason to remain. In certain very rare circumstances, they may use the power to influence certain events, most notably the Twenty Hermits who took vows of continuous reincarnation during the Loss.
The sort of complete annhilation of the question that produces an utheyethi should not be confused with the normal question-answering process that forms a normal life. In most cases, a life simply provides an answer - maybe a good one, maybe otherwise - and then departs.
