The Holy Reincarnation of the Living Pakal

The Holy Reincarnation of the Living Pakal
The Succession and Accession Lineage of the Sacred Solar House of King Pakal of Palenque in Modern Times

In this article, we present a traditional explanation of the reincarnation of the last living Pakal namely Lord Pakal Ahau born in August 22, 1952.

Lord Pakal Ahau is our spiritual leader and head director of the Pakalian Group of Mexico, also known before as the Ancient Order of Chilam Balam and its Nine Degrees. The group changed its name in 1999 to keep with modern spiritual evolution but many rules and rituals have not changed for many centuries since King Hanab Pakal of Palenque was born in the year 603 CE.

Our institution emerged during the last decades of the Balam priests in the XV Century and has continued under a low profile in the same area where the Maya occupied Yucatan in Mexico. The most famous representative is the last and greatest prophet Chilam Balam of Chumayel. His most popular prediction was the coming of strangers from the east who would establish a new religion. The prompt fulfilment of this prediction enhanced his reputation as a seer that in later times he was considered the authority for many other prophecies which had been uttered long before his time. Inasmuch as prophecies were the most prominent feature of many of the older books of this sort, it was natural to name the prophetic documents after the famous soothsayer.

However, there are other Mayan beliefs established as the reincarnation of the last living Pakal, also prophecized in the Books of Chilam Balam. According to our tradition, the current Ahau is a reincarnation of a past Pakal or Solar Shield who decided to be reborn again to continue his important work, instead of moving on from the wheel of life. A person who decides to be continually reborn is known in Mayan Lacandon language as toop’-i’ (”to be born again”). During the times when Chilam Balam was living, the Spanish clergy condemned the Books of Chilam Balam, and crime of idolatry as was anything written in hieroglyphics. Currently, the strong roots of Catholicism in Mexico and elsewhere still prohibit the idea of reincarnation as opposed to Eastern cultures such as India, Tibet and Japan. Moreover, some Western Maya scholars consider old transcriptions in a rigid semantic way ignoring cultural beliefs and usually transliteration of Mayan hieroglyphs substitutes parallel passages and explains the significance of obscure texts in a non-offensive way so the reader could understand them according to stereotyped Western Victorian values. There are many examples in this research category such as the omission in academic books and reputable journals of sexuality and sexual glyphs of Quetzalcoatl texts. Similar cases appear in the long-suppressed facts of Catholic dogma. One research study that comes to mind is the work of scholar Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion.

In Mayan terms, the enthronement of King Pakal at 12 years old was believed to be a reincarnation of his ancestors and originally from the First Father of Creation. In prophecy, Chilam told in his books that at the end of the Thirteenth Baktun era, ‘the last Pakal will appear to his little ones.’ This concept is known as the 2012 Mayan Prophecy, in which by our Maize God’s design, a solar child is born at the right time to fulfill the mission of the Prophecy. Thus, the responsibility of the Ancient Order of Chilam Balam and its Nine Degrees was to create the right reincarnation of Pakal. In contrast with the Gelupga tradition of the Tibetan Buddhism, the government finds the reincarnation in potential candidates. In Mayan tribal tradition, the reincarnation can be produced in two ways, by palingenesis or by lineage. The latter method is the most preferable and was the chosen process by the priests of the Ancient Order of Chilam Balam searching for the future mother of the last Pakal. The process accepts that the maternal blood contribution, in this case Lacandon, is only necessary to engender the reincarnation, while the paternal heritage can be local or foreign. A very similar process happened when King Pakal was considered the right successor of the throne in Palenque.

In addition, there are several additional ways that confirmed that the new reincarnation was found.

1) An important date related to the House of Pakals. This fact was corroborated fortunately because Dr. Ruz L’huillier discovered the 8 Ahau in 1952 and moved the Reincarnation Stone Lid on August 22, 1952 when Lord Pakal Ahau was born making him the reincarnation on 1 Ik 5 Yaxk’in according to Lounsbury GMT correlation. Coincidentally, the archaeological work was suspended until November 1952 because of an earthquake on that day and a huge flooding of King Pakal’s funerary chamber, indicating the rupture of the placenta and spill of amniotic fluid in Lord Pakal Ahau’s mother during the delivery.

2) A paranormal phenomena from the solar child or from the Mayan shaman-priests. In this case, the child was able to describe a Mayan apparition at 6 years old and was able to recognize Mayan elements such as the wearing of elaborate penachos or feathered headresses, characteristic of Mayan nobility, the King’s scepter called K’awiil held by the apparition on his right hand, and certain phonetic sounds (e.g., ahaw) and musical sounds (maracas) as the apparition embraced the child.

3) A vision from the main shaman-priest. The most important Lacandon priest in 1952, the Ahau-can, who received the good news and directions through an enteogenic divination ritual with other shamans alerting that the solar child was born.

Consequently, during his royal initiation, Lord Pakal Ahau received two old inscriptions from the Ancient Order of Chilam Balam when he was 12 years old to continue the work of the Sacred House of Pakal. Traditionally, these inscriptions are to be given to the next living Pakal as the spiritual leader to prove his continuity. They are preserved iconic inscriptions with the images of K’inich Kan Balam (whose name is translated as Serpent Jaguar Oriented to the Sun), legitimate son of King Hanab Pakal and the other image inscription is King Pakal’s wife, Tzakbu Ajaw or Lady Ahpo-Hel, Queen of Palenque, holding in her extended hands a shield/flint god resting over a shallow bowl with everted rim. The last inscription indicates the offering of the maternal succession passed by females through the Ik reincarnation. The correct name of Lord Pakal Ahau is K’inich Pakal Ahau of Palenque.