Death and Afterlife

As a biological phenomenon, death is universal. On a general level, reflections on death show many similarities cross-culturally. Coping with death through ritual practice can be observed in every society; ritual actions such as funerary rites, rituals of mourning, and rites of remembering as well as various concepts of death and afterlife are thought to try to conquer death, regenerate life, achieve immortality, and continue life after death (Bloch & Parry, 1982). Despite these conceptual similarities, a closer look reveals many variations across cultures, as well as across time. Modernity in particular has brought considerable changes to ritual practice concerning death and afterlife in Western societies. Death has gone through an era of medicalization that in many cases has led to a prolonged process of dying, in the highly technological environment of hospitals in which there is little room for rituals. At the same time, this has resulted in various alternate approaches to death and dying, such as the Hospice Movement with its emphasis on palliative care and enough room for personal and ritual attention. Regarding rituals surrounding death, collective Christian beliefs and concepts about death and afterlife have been partially replaced by secular and individualistic concepts. Μore and more people in Western societies refer to concepts that are adapted from other religious systems such as Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, or Hinduism. Further, the conditions of migration and globalization require a different treatment of death and dying, such as how and where funerary ceremonies should be held and in which way the dead should be remembered.

Similarly, death is handled in various ways within the Hindu cultural tradition. Notions on death and beliefs in an afterlife differ in important respects in the different regions of the subcontinent and among the different social communities. Moreover, modernity is affecting ritual practices regarding dying, death, and funerals. It would be an illusion to consider Hindu mortuary rituals as timeless practices – nevertheless, there are underlying concepts of death and afterlife that can be portrayed as more or less common to all levels of the Hindu tradition despite regional, social, and historical variations. Equally, a number of ritual practices concerning death are widespread and can be considered as underlying elements in the ritual performances among groups belonging to different social strata. It is these underlying elements that are considered here, taking into account important differences. The textual tradition with its reference to the ideal ritual as it should be performed is taken into account as well as actual rituals as they are performed at a specific time and place.

Rituals of death have been classified as rites de passage by A. van Gennep, together with birth rituals, name-giving ceremonies, and marriage. It is the task of any rite de passage (Skt. saṃskāras) to confirm the newly acquired social status of an individual as well as to guarantee the continuity of society. Marriage and death rituals accompany the most important events in society. Marriage (the alliance with strangers) and death (the loss of a member of one’s own social group) both threaten the continuity of society and have to be carefully marked by rituals. In addition, death rituals have to take care of two categories of persons, the dead and the living. The bereaved have to be confirmed in their new social status as widow or widower, as a legal heir, or as a new head of the family, while the deceased have to be transformed into pacified spiritual beings and to be accompanied or rather guided to their secure place in the ancestral world.

The most important Hindu notion about death is the general distinction between different ways of dying. There is not just death; it is important to ask several questions. Who dies what kind of death? Is it an old person, a young person, a woman? Is it a good death, an invited death, a death that gains ritual merit, or a bad death, an untimely death, a violent death? The responses to death and the notions of afterlife vary accordingly. The ways of handling death and the respective rituals depend on what kind of death a person has died. The discourse on life and afterlife is very much influenced by whether a person died a good or a bad death.

Ways of Dying

The Good Death

The notion of dying a good or bad death is found all over Hindu India. Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical concepts are similar in all important respects. The paradigmatically good death is carried out actively by the dying person. A good death is not perceived as something that has to be passively sustained. A good death occurs when a person dies in old age after having achieved the last stage of life, leaving behind children and grandchildren and ideally at least one son who will then act as chief mourner and perform the funerary rituals. Death should be actively anticipated by the dying person. In a sense, it should be invited (Settar, 1986). A good death, actively caused by oneself, is considered a voluntary self-sacrifice, leading to permanent detachment from the cycle of birth and rebirth ( saṃsāra ). As described by J. Parry,

"[d]eath must be a voluntary relinquishment of life, a controlled evacuation of the body. In the paradigmatically “good” death (sumaran), the dying man – like the sacrificer before the sacrifice ... – forgoes all food for some days before death, and consumes only Ganges water and the mixture in which an image of a deity has been bathed (charan amrit), in order to weaken his body so that the vital breath may leave it more easily; and in order to make himself a worthy sacrificial object free of foul faecal matter. He should die to the sound of the chanting of the names of God, for his thoughts at that moment may determine his subsequent fate; and he should be empty of all desire for the things of this world, for those who remain in bondage to it are condemned to wander in misery for a thousand years as a malevolent ghost" (Parry, 1994, 158).

Dying a good death is also a highly gendered matter. For a Brahman or other high-caste woman to die a good death, she has to die before her husband. She should die as a married woman (sumaṅgalī) with adult children and grandchildren. Dying before her husband also shows that she has lived up to the pativratā (vows for the husband) ideal, praying and fasting for the sake of her husband and thus guaranteeing a long life and well-being for him. When a married woman dies at this most auspicious stage of her life, her death is celebrated with an elaborate funeral festival. Her body is clad in a red sāṛī and decorated elaborately as in her wedding. The funerary procession is accompanied by music and drums.

A good death occurs at the right time and at the right place (Parry, 1994, 160). Benares is the place that is most closely tied to the notion of dying a good death in Hindu India . Benares, or Varanasi (its official name), or Kashi (Skt. Kāśī; as it is called by the pilgrims) is considered to be the center of the universe for many Hindus. It is the place of Śiva, and Manikarnika Ghat in the center of the city is considered to be the place where the universe was created at the beginning of time. Manikarnika Ghat is also the mahāśmaśāna, the great cremation place, where the fire is never extinguished and where every year thousands of corpses are cremated, either of people who died in Kashi or of persons who died outside the town and are then brought to Kashi, in order to be cremated in this auspicious place. In several texts, such as the Garuḍapurāṇa, it is written that a person who dies a good death of old age in a holy tīrtha  like Benares will immediately attain mokṣa (liberation). According to Brahmanical belief, at the moment of death Śiva whispers the tarak mantra (words of relinquishment) into the ear of the dying person; this destroys the fruit of past actions and leads to instant liberation.

Several hospice-like institutions, such as the Kashi Ganga Labh Bhavan or the Kashi Labh Muktibhavan, provide shelter for dying persons who are brought to Kashi by their relatives. C. Justice carried out research in one of these hospices between 1990 and 1991 and describes what it means in practical terms to die a good death in Kashi. He describes a number of cases in which a rogī marnevala (afflicted dying person), on the verge of death, was brought to the Kashi Labh Muktibhavan by a group of about four family members. Among the persons coming to Kashi to die a good death, quite a few had “family histories” of dying in Kashi. In all cases reported by C. Justice, the dying person had decided earlier that he or she should be brought to Kashi to die. In some cases, the “gift of a cow” (to the family priest or another Brahman) was performed during the last days of the person’s life. It is believed to help the dying person cross the terrible Vaitaraṇī River on his postdeath journey to the world of Yama. At the signs of nearing death – as, for instance, when the person stops eating – the family announces the move to Kashi. All the villagers come to touch the feet of the dying person to honor her or him and get her or his blessings. Traveling to Kashi can be strenuous. People travel by train, rickshaw, or hired car, with the dying person on their laps. Once they reach Kashi Labh Muktibhavan, they get an unfurnished room to settle down in with the dying person. There, the dying person is provided with a highly spiritual atmosphere. Almost incessantly, kīrtans and bhajans are sung, and in between the priests recite from sacred texts, such as the Rāmāyaṇa or the Rāmcaritmanas by Tulsīdās. Each day, the dying person is visited by the priest and gets Gaṅgā water and caraṇ amṛt (Skt. caraṇāmṛta; foot ambrosia, water in which the idol of a deity has been bathed and which is considered to be a sacred drink). Dying in such a spiritual environment is the end of a highly spiritual and pious life and finally results in mokṣa. Interestingly, C. Justice found that mokṣa did not mean the same for everybody who was dying or accompanying a dying family member in the Kashi Labh Muktibhavan. Mokṣa, according to the textual tradition, means “liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.” Most informants would come to attain mokṣa in this sense, but for others, dying in Kashi meant attaining mokṣa in the sense of getting a better life in their next birth, such as being born as a rich landowner or as a holy man (Justice, 1997, 34). After dying such a good death, the corpse is cremated at Manikarnika Ghat, and the ashes are immersed in the river Gaṅgā. The postcremation rituals are performed in the village of the deceased.

In C. Justice’s study, all the dying pilgrims come from villages in districts near Kashi. They are mostly farmers from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, slightly more men than women, and all belong to twice-born castes, mostly Brahmans and Rajputs. According to the rules of the Muktibhavan, lower castes are not allowed inside, and since the journey involves considerable expense, it is difficult for lower-class people to come to Kashi (Justice, 1997, 92). However, lower-caste people avoid Kashi not only for financial reasons, but also because many of them do not give significance to the concept of mokṣa. The significance of textual concepts is limited socially as well as historically. Although Benares or Kashi is considered to be an all-Indian pilgrimage center and although several sacred texts mention its importance for dying and attaining mokṣa, its importance is highly regional. And although Kashi is considered to have been the center of the universe since time immemorial, it is only since the 12th century that it has gained in significance over other places such as Prayag (Allahabad) and Gaya for dying persons and pilgrims in general (Justice, 1997, 41).

The Bad Death

Contrary to a good death, which occurs at the right time and place and is well anticipated, a bad death is in all respects an untimely death (akāl mṛtyu [Skt. akālamṛtyu]; Parry, 1994, 162). A person who dies without having reached the last stage of life, who dies too young (as a child or as a young, unmarried adult), a death during pregnancy, or any death that occurs suddenly and unexpectedly is considered to be a bad death. A bad death might be the result of bad karma , or it can be caused by an act of violence. A violent death, such as suicide or murder, or a death caused by witchcraft, is considered to be a bad death. Similarly, a death caused by an accident, a snake bite, or by certain diseases such as leprosy or AIDS, is supposed to be bad. Moreover, not only does a bad death occur in the form of death actively caused by the violence of others, but it is also defined by the fact that it occurs at a bad time, unexpectedly, and unintentionally. As defined by J. Parry, a bad death, according to Brahmanical conception,

"is the death of the person who is caught short, his body still full of excrement, and his duties unfinished. It is the death of one whose youthfulness belies the likelihood of a conscious and voluntary renunciation of life, or of one whose body is contaminated by a disease which makes it unfit as a life-creating sacrifice" (Bloch & Parry, 1982, 16).

C. Justice explicates:

"Moreover, time is important. According to Brahmin informants in Benares, a bad death occurs at night between 11.00 and about 3.00 a.m. This is a bad time to die, as it is the time of evil beings. It is also bad to die drunk, eating meat, during sex, or during child delivery" (Justice, 1997, 228).

The concept of bad death is also linked to gender and refers to high-caste women whose husbands die before them. A Brahman widow is supposed to be responsible for the death of her husband. For some reason or the other, she could not manage to live according to the pativratā ideal. After the death of her husband, her own death cannot be a good death anymore. Her life becomes inauspicious, and that prevents her from attending any auspicious events, such as marriages. She should wear white or at least light-colored cotton sāṛīs and eat only simple food, cooked in water with little salt. No jewelry is allowed anymore. A widow can, however, ameliorate her fate of a future bad death by becoming a kāśīvāsi (residence in Kashi) widow. As kāśīvāsi widows, women of Brahman and Vaiśya merchant castes live in convents or āśrams, or near temples as beggars, for the rest of their lives. Thus, they can avoid a bad death and might eventually attain even kāśīlabh (the benefit of dying in Kashi) ormokṣa (Parry, 1994, 51).

Although there are lists of good and bad deaths in various ritual texts, it is not in all cases objectively and mechanically judged whether a death is good or bad. A specific way of dying is open to various interpretations, as is shown in J. Parry’s example of a middle-aged Agarwal (Hind. Agravāl/Agaravāl; caste) woman who died prematurely as the result of an accident, with her husband still alive. What by definition should have been considered a bad, untimely death turned out to be a highly auspicious death. In fact, the wife wanted to help her husband who had had a bad fall and had broken his arm. Accidentally, she hurt herself with a rusty nail while coming to his help, and she died of tetanus a few days later. The family emphasized that she had died while performing her most sacred duty, to serve her husband and protect his life. Therefore, her death, although premature, was considered a good death (Parry, 1994, 166). Even an untimely, uncontrolled, or bad death, as in case of dying from leprosy, can be reconfigured and turned into a good death. For instance, an effigy of the deceased can be constructed in which his soul is summoned. This surrogate body is then made to die and can be cremated like the corpse of a person who has died a controlled and good death (Parry, 1994, 6). Other interpretations depend on events after death. Frequent problems and misfortunes in the family of the deceased suggest that the person might have died a bad death unknowingly due to sorcery or other reasons. He is now a harmful ghost who is bothering his relatives. In contrast, in the case of an apparently untimely death, good fortune and prosperity indicate a good death with the deceased’s ghost becoming a benevolent ancestor, protecting his relatives.

Death That Conquers Death

The relations between death and violence are complex. Two kinds of violence can be distinguished. First, any bad death is also a violent death, in the sense of being caused by others, being untimely, or being out of the control of the dying person. The second kind of violence is acted out by the dying person him- or herself, by actively and purposefully offering his or her own life for a higher spiritual goal. The idea that death could be the precondition for salvation and that one could therefore “conquer” death and rebirth has a long history in the Hindu textual tradition. Various textual sources narrate the circumstances of these deaths, the concepts of morality they are based on, and the religious merits that are gained through such a self-induced violent death. Although premature, it is considered a death that conquers death, in the sense that it leads to mokṣa or in the sense that it results in the deification of the person who has committed the voluntary self-sacrifice.

The goddess Satī is the most well-known example of such a moral suicide that results in religious merit. Satī, or Dakṣayani, daughter of Dakṣa and wife of Śiva, could not bear her father humiliating and dishonoring her husband and therefore immolated herself in a fire sacrifice. She became the embodiment of a wife’s loyalty and devotion to her husband. Her death is considered to be highly virtuous.

The practice of satī is considered one specific form of an ideal death for a woman. Self-immolation of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband is viewed in textual sources as a highly esteemed self-sacrifice, both for the sake of the spiritual merits of the satī herself as well as for the general well-being of her relatives. In the case of her husband’s death, a Brahman wife somehow has not lived according to the pativratā ideal. As a perfect pativratā who guarantees a long life to her husband, she should die before him. However, even in case her husband dies before her, she can become an ideal pativratā. She could climb onto the funerary pyre and be immolated together with her husband, thus becoming a satī. The Antyeṣṭipaddhati (Manual for the Last Rites) gives clear instructions on how to proceed in this ritual (Müller, 1992, 205). It also mentions some exceptions: if she is pregnant or a mother of young children, a widow is not allowed to immolate herself.

According to the Sanskritic textual tradition, like the Antyeṣṭipaddhati, committing satī leads to immediate mokṣa. It is also mentioned in the Antyeṣṭipaddhati that a woman who decides to immolate herself will get great remunerations not only for herself and her husband, but also for her husband’s family as well as her mother’s and her father’s families. In popular Hinduism, self-immolation results in deification of the satī who is then worshipped and whose divine power is able to protect the living. Various satī shrines in North India, for instance in Kashi, document the fact that a woman has committed satī at this place. A powerful satī might grant children, she might heal or protect persons who come to her in search for help. The ritual of dying with one’s husband has always been practiced among very few social groups, mainly by high-caste women belonging to the Brahmanical strata of society and to the nobility. It has never been practiced by the majority of Indian society. Although it is prohibited by law, there are still isolated cases of satī, such as the self-immolation of the 18-year-old Roop Kanwar in 1987 (Hawley, 1994). Her death, though a virtuous act for some people, has been strongly criticized as an inhuman practice by the majority of contemporary Indian society.

Another example of a violent but highly virtuous death is the sacrificial death of the warrior-hero (Skt. vīra) killed in battle. His death was violent, untimely, and not self-induced. However, it was considered to be highly virtuous. This is made evident by numerous hero stones dating back to the 7th to 14th centuries, found all over India. The concept of a vīra – who, as a deified being, protects those who worship him – can be seen as a counterdiscourse to the classical texts of Brahmanical Hinduism and has been practiced by the non-Brahmanical strata of society (Thapar, 1981, 293).

The concept of death and deification, as well as different forms of vīra cults, is still prevalent in popular Hinduism. Here, the death of children, which by definition of Brahmanical texts is a bad and untimely death, can be transformed into a good death. In South India, as for example in the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh, deceased children may become deified beings or little heroes (Tel. vīrulu) some time after their death. They manifest themselves as divine beings by possessing one of their family members. Once they are identified as benevolent divine beings living in the realm of deities, they may help and support their relatives. They can be invoked into the body of a medium if their family members face problems such as prolonged illness, bad luck, or financial problems. Although deified children are at the bottom of the divine hierarchy, people prefer to ask them, rather than a more powerful deity, for help. Whereas deities are demanding and threatening, the little heroes, as members of the family, are good natured and lenient about the “sins” of their relatives, and their demands are rather modest. Thus, the untimely death of a child or young adult need not be a bad death resulting in uncontrollable spirits and ghosts, but it may develop into a good death, when the deceased child manifests itself as a divine being. Such a death may turn out to be an advantage for the bereaved and thus at least some consolation for the relatives (Schömbucher, 1999; Knipe, 1989).

Another prevalent form of a death that conquers death is the practice of “dying while living,” as it is performed by ascetics. Dying to the world ritually, after a fulfilled social life, in order to transcend all worldly matters, has a long tradition in Hinduism. One example is the devotional literature of medieval Hinduism, such as the hymns of the Marathi saints Tukārām and Nāmdev, in which “to die before dying, to die while living” is an important topic (Kinsley, 1977). In the system of the four āśramas, the last stage ( saṃnyāsa ) is intended to renounce the world, and a person who seeks release from saṃsāra is encouraged to withdraw from the social world and live his life as an ascetic; he may eventually undertake the mahāprasthana, the great journey, walking to the north, without eating or drinking, until he dies (Kinsley, 1977, 101). Once the decision to renounce the world is made, the ascetic-to-be performs his śrāddhas himself and has thus ritually died to the world. He leaves his family and relatives with the words, “to me belongs no one, nor do I belong to any one.” Thus, he has died ritually as well as socially. He should then renounce all worldly affairs and, according to the Saṃnyāsopaniṣad, deal with his body “as if it were dead” (Kinsley, 1977, 102).

An extreme form of conquering death through asceticism is lived by the Aghorīs, a specific form of the Kāpālikas(ascetics who carry a skull-bowl). They try to overcome all conventional norms regarding ritual purity and moral conduct and thus transcend all worldly attachments to reach the final stage of mokṣa. These ascetics take death and its related impure substances to overcome all dualities of life. They want to overcome death and redeath by incorporating the most defiling products relating to death. Aghorīs live near cremation grounds, cover themselves with ashes from the cremated corpses, take a skull as their food bowl, and are said to use parts of the corpses or whole corpses to conduct some of their rituals (Malinar, 2009a, 81).

Last Ceremonies

To carry out death rituals correctly, ritual specialists are necessary. The performance of a death ritual is determined by the way of dying. Certain elements of the ritual depend on whether the person has died a good death or a bad death. In the following paragraphs, the general elements of death rituals will be depicted, taking into account which kind of death a person has died. Death rituals are divided into two categories, theantyeṣṭisaṃskāra (procedures for cremation) and the śrāddhasaṃskāra (rites for the dead performed after cremation). Hinduism has a long and complex textual tradition that relates dialectically to the various levels of popular culture. Although rituals are prescribed in detail in specific manuals, they might not always be performed accordingly. In fact, ritual manuals even mention less complex alternatives, in case the prescriptions cannot be followed for certain reasons. The procedures for cremation, the funeral rituals, and the rituals of remembrance are fairly uniform throughout India and are performed according to vedic models. Despite variations across time, region, and social strata, we find considerable conformity of death rituals.

Antyeṣṭi: Procedure for Cremation

The most well-known manual for death rituals, the Antyeṣṭipaddhati, was written down by the famous Brahman scholar Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa in Benares in the 16th century. The Antyeṣṭipaddhati gives a detailed account of how the last rites for the cremation should be performed in an ideal way. In real life, however, the cremation rites can be shortened and simplified. The manual is to be employed in Brahmanical death rituals; certain elements in it are to some extent authoritative for death rituals among other social communities as well.

The Body

Traditionally, a good death should occur at one’s home (if not in Benares). If possible, the dying person should be removed from bed and laid on the ground, because the sky is reserved for deities, and the earth for human beings and animals, whereas the realm between sky and earth, and thus also a bed, is the realm of ghosts (Michaels, 1998, 153). The feet should point to the south, the direction of Yama’s kingdom. As death approaches, the gift of a cow should be made to a Brahman. The gift will remove all the sins of the deceased and guide and protect the soul across the terrifying river Vaitaraṇī (Parry, 1994, 173). This, however, is a custom practiced only among Brahman castes.

As soon as there are no more signs of life, the body turns into a corpse. The corpse is given a bath, and the orifices of the body are sometimes sealed with cotton. Sometimes, coins are put on the corpse, and tulsī (basil) leaves or holy water is put into the mouth. After that, the corpse is draped in a shroud and put on a bier. A male corpse is handled by male relatives, a female corpse by the women in the family. As the corpse lies decorated, visitors will come to gain a last sight of the deceased. During these last hours in the house of the deceased, women will express their sorrow over the death of their relative in the form of lamentations, which are highly formalized and proscribed forms of expressing grief during funeral rituals. Women will gather in groups, weeping, moaning, sobbing, and swaying together. The laments are dramatized by high-pitched voices, chest beating, and hair pulling. Individual women may lose control or faint and have to be taken care of by others. Accomplished singers might join the female mourners to express everyone’s grief with orally transmitted dirges praising the deceased person and bemoaning the loss. With each new visitor entering the scene, the wailing increases in intensity, and it reaches its climax when the funeral procession is about to leave for the cremation or burial ground. Since women are not allowed to join the procession, this is their last opportunity to see the deceased.

Funeral

In India, death is a highly visible part of social life. In contrast with Western societies, in India corpses are traditionally carried on open biers through the streets to the cremation ground. Clad in white or yellow cloth and beautifully decorated with orange and yellow geṅdās (marigolds; bot. Tagetes), with the face often visible, the corpse is carried by four male relatives and accompanied by other male relatives and friends to the cremation or burial ground. Drums or a monotonous recitation of rām nām satya hai (“the name of Rām is truth”) make this a highly audible event as well.

The cremation ground (śmaśāna) is traditionally located outside the village or town, to the south and near a river, a pond, or the seashore. Only in Benares, Manikarnika Ghat, the famous śmaśāna, is right in the center of the city. In larger cities, electric crematoriums are also available. In Madurai, for example, all the big funeral grounds are located in one area. Next to the Hindu cremation and burial ground there are Christian and Muslim cemeteries. The Hindu cremation and burial ground is a public area that is also used as a shortcut, as a playing ground where boys play cricket, and as a toilet (Peyer, 2002, iv). If the corpse is cremated on a traditional cremation ground, it is placed on the funeral pyre, sometimes sprinkled with water or clarified butter and sesame seeds, and circumambulated counter-clockwise by the chief mourner, who lights the fire at the head of the corpse. The central part of the cremation ceremony is the kāpāl kriyā, the “rite of the skull.” Kāpāl kriyā, the opening or smashing of the skull with the help of a long bamboo pole after the body is half burned, is the duty of the son, or the chief mourner. It enables the individual soul ( puruṣa ) to leave the body. After that, it exists for some time as apreta (ghost) and eventually becomes an ancestor. After the kāpāl kriyā, the fire is guarded by one person, whereas the others, including the chief mourner, must purify themselves with a bath in the near river, pond, or ocean before returning home. On their way home, all relatives who accompanied the corpse pour two handfuls of water on a stone representing the dead, in order to quench his thirst resulting from the cremation.

The ashes and leftover bones are collected and later immersed in a river. Although cremation is more widespread than burial, a corpse has to be buried under certain conditions. Groups of lower social status, such as fishermen, washermen, or Dalits, bury their dead by custom, but they may also decide to cremate a corpse for individual reasons. However, there are instances in which the dead body has to be buried. Persons who have died a violent, bad death cannot be cremated. Women dying during childbirth, children, and persons dying of certain diseases, such as smallpox or cholera, have to be buried. Their death cannot be a good death, since they had no time to fulfill all their social roles. In Benares, such corpses could also be immersed in the river Gaṅgā. The corpse of an ascetic should be immersed in a river, since he had already performed his death rituals when he decided to renounce the world. However, as a result of environmental campaigns against the pollution of the river Gaṅgā, immersion of dead bodies in the river is now officially prohibited (Parry, 1994, 69).

The traditional method of cremation is changing rapidly. All major cities have electric crematoriums. Back in 1989, the city of Benares had opened an electric crematorium at Harishchandra Ghat. After initial reservations, there were four thousand electric cremations per year in 1992, due to very low fees compared to the traditional cremation on a wooden pyre (Parry, 1994, 68). In other cities, such as Ahmedabad in 2008, around one-fourth of the corpses were cremated in electric crematoriums. The municipalities take care to provide the mourners with as traditional conditions as possible. Most corpses are now brought by car. From the entrance of the crematorium to the furnace chambers, a traditional cremation route is created for the relatives to carry the bier. At the juncture of the cremation route and the cremation chambers, the corpse is placed on a platform, where rituals can be performed. For ecological and environmental reasons, the construction of electric crematoriums is encouraged by the municipalities. An “eco-friendly way to heaven” (, Sep 14, 2009) is highly subsidized and considerably cheaper than a traditional cremation on a wooden pyre. According to United Nations estimates, about ten million people die in India per year. Of these, 85% are Hindus. If all of them practiced cremation using wooden pyres, it would require an estimated 50 million trees, producing half a million metric tonnes of ash and eight million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year (, Sep 14, 2009).

Śrāddhas: Postcremation Rites for the Departed

After the cremation rites are completed, the bereaved have to take care of the soul of the departed and transform it into an ancestor. The period for the śrāddha or postcremation rituals lasts for ten to 15 days. Śrāddha rituals are meant to create a new body for the deceased. At death, it is men who “give birth.” They assist at cremation; they perform the last rites (antyeṣṭi), and in śrāddha rituals they “give birth” to the body of the ancestor by formingpiṇḍas (Parry, 1994, 152).

Ritual Impurity

Immediately after death the kitchen fire or hearth in the house of the deceased is extinguished and will not be re-lit on that day. The cremation or burial is followed by a period of ritual impurity (sūtaka) lasting for the duration of the śrāddha rituals. The degree of ritual impurity depends on the relation to the deceased. It vanishes gradually. Near relatives of the deceased are more impure than distant relatives. They should fast, eating only one proper meal a day. It should not contain salt or turmeric and should include no fried food. They should not wear new or brightly colored clothes, and they should abstain from sexual activity. The chief mourner has even more restrictions. He cannot sleep on a bed; he should bathe every day in a river or tank, but may not use soap or oil for ten days; he may not wash his clothes. He may not shave, get his nails cut, or comb his hair. During the time of highest impurity, usually on the first or the first three days, no food should be cooked in the deceased person’s house. The deceased person’s family should instead be provided with food by other relatives. In social terms impurity can be seen as a metaphor for liminality. Both the deceased and the bereaved are in a period of transition. The bereaved have to cope with social imbalance and eventually take on new social roles, and the deceased will eventually exist in a new realm.

The duration of the mourning period depends on the family’s varṇa. According to the Garuḍapurāṇa, the mourning period for Brahmans lasts for ten days, for Kṣatriyas 12 days, for Vaiśyas 15 days, and for Śūdras one month (Michaels, 1998, 155).

With a feast at the end of the mourning period the mourners are reintegrated into society, regaining ritual purity. The chief mourner, however, can only be reintegrated fully into social and ritual life after one year. Strictly speaking, ritual impurity does not begin at the time of death but at the time of the funeral. This becomes obvious from the exceptions mentioned in the Antyeṣṭipaddhati. If someone dies in a foreign country, the corpse should be cremated there without rituals. Since there is no ritual fire and no authorized ritual specialist, ritual cremation cannot take place. The corpse should be cremated nonritually and the collected bones should be brought back to the home of the deceased, where the ritual cremation (mantrāgni) will take place. Even if a son knows about the death of his father in a distant place, the son will not be ritually impure until he performs the ritual cremation of his father’s bones (Müller, 1992, 21). Today it is a widespread ritual practice to perform cremation without rituals (baḍrāgni), and to perform mantrāgni later at a pilgrimage center (Müller, 1992, 34).

The most drastic changes regarding her social and ritual status occur for a Brahman or high-caste woman if her husband dies before her. The wife is turned into a widow. Her bangles are ritually broken, and the sindūr(vermillion, symbol of an Indian woman’s married state) is removed from the parting of her hair. While the ritual impurity of a male relative ends after the śrāddha rituals, the ritual impurity of a Brahman widow becomes inauspiciousness. She cannot take part in rituals anymore; she cannot be invited to weddings because her presence would be inauspicious. Brahman widows are not allowed to remarry, whereas widows of lower castes can and do marry again 

Besides emotional distress and social restrictions due to ritual impurity, the mourning period is accompanied by fear. The deceased person’s spirit might cling to the mourners and might not want to leave its house, and therefore it might try to come back from the cremation ground with the mourners. Several precautions have to be taken in order to prevent ghosts from attacking the bereaved. Persons who die outside their homes, such as in a hospital, are brought straight to the cremation or burial ground so that the ghost cannot cling to the house. Limes, tying threads, fire crackers, and drums are used to distract spirits from the mourners (Peyer, 2004, 85). The chief mourner protects himself by carrying a knife or another iron implement with him during the funeral procession in order to fend off the spirit. He should keep some iron implement during the whole period of śrāddha rituals to ward off the spirit of the deceased.

Sapiṇḍīkaraṇa

The śrāddha rituals are performed by the chief mourner together with a funerary priest (mahāpatra) and the family priest (purohit). According to early vedic texts, śrāddha rituals were performed over a period of one year. This has subsequently been shortened to a symbolic year consisting of 12 days, each day symbolizing one month. The major elements of the ritual, however, are still the same. During the first 11 (or sometimes ten) days, thenavaśrāddhas (rituals for the “new” or recently deceased) are performed. In each of these daily rituals, the parts of a temporary (new) body are created for the deceased. Notwithstanding all the differences and variations, theśrāddha rituals shall be depicted here as performed by an ideal Brahman chief mourner, according to D.M. Knipe (1977, 115). On the first day after the cremation rituals, the chief mourner bathes and dresses, then creates with his right hand a single tennis-ball-sized mass of cooked white rice, called a piṇḍa, and places it on a small altar. Thepiṇḍa represents the deceased person’s spirit (preta, the departed) and is worshipped with incense, flowers, a ghee lamp, and some threads representing clothes. Offerings of food and water are made. A small cup of water containing sesame seeds is poured on the piṇḍa. Each day, the procedure is repeated with a single piṇḍarepresenting the preta, but there is one more cup of each day for the soul to drink. Thus, each day a new portion of the preta’s body is created, beginning with the head on the first day, until it is complete on the tenth day. Thepreta will have the same body parts as a human being (Knipe, 2005, 71). On the tenth day, when the newly formed intermediate body is complete, the sacrificer and all the male relatives of the household will take a bath and be shaved by a barber. With this, their ritual impurity, caused by death, ends. On the 11th day, the rites for “the single deceased person” (ekoddiṣṭa) are performed. A feast is held for invited Brahmans who represent the company of the ancestors.

The sapiṇḍīkaraṇa, the ritual that was originally performed after one year and is now performed on the 12th day, is the last and most important of the śrāddha rituals. With the sapiṇḍīkaraṇa, the making of an ancestor, theśrāddha rituals end. On this day the funerary priest (mahāpatra) receives gifts, such as money, wheat, rice, cloth, and the blanket of the deceased. Further gifts are given to the family priest (purohit) and to the persons who have read out the Garuḍapurāṇa, from which instructions for the śrāddha rituals are taken. After a symbolic year’s journey as a preta between earth and sky, the deceased has now reached the world of the ancestors (piṭrloka).

Sapiṇḍīkaraṇa means “the making of a sapiṇḍa relationship” between those who offer piṇḍas (the living) and those who accept piṇḍas (the deceased). The sapiṇḍa relationship is not only important during the śrāddharituals. Literally, sapiṇḍīkaraṇa might be translated as “making one flesh” or “one body” (Parry, 1994, 204). Sapiṇḍarelatives are those with whom one shares body particles. They consider themselves an agnatic unit, a group of inheritance, and, in the North Indian marriage system, an exogamous unit for whose members marriage relationships are forbidden for five or seven generations.

Not every community follows the elaborate Brahmanical way of śrāddha rituals. The creation of an ancestral body might not be highly elaborate in all cases. The rituals might be considerably shortened. In fact, very often the rituals are performed only once on the last day. Among lower castes, such as Dalits, the symbolic creation of a new temporary body is not thought to be their foremost need, although they share the concept of a preta who has to be guided to its new realm. This can be accomplished in various ways. Among several non-Brahman communities in South India, the relatives of the deceased arrange for a theatre performance on the final day of a 16-day period of funeral rites. They hope that the staging of Karṇa’s death, an episode from the Mahābhārata, will help the deceased person’s soul to reach its final destination, or even mokṣa, just as Karṇa did in the story. If the deceased is a man, the widow’s status will be confirmed at the end of the play by ceremonially removing her marriage symbols (Bruin, 1998, xiv). Equally, feasting among Dalits is not meant for Brahmans symbolizing the ancestors. Inviting huge numbers of relatives and caste members for a feast is meant to strengthen social ties, honor the deceased, and enhance the status of the mourning family by demonstrating their ability to organize lavish feasts (Randeria, 1999).

Afterlife

After death a Hindu becomes either an ancestor, a deified being, or a malevolent spirit. He might be reborn or attain liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. The concepts of afterlife are complex and interwoven. Like all religious traditions and concepts within Hinduism, the concepts of afterlife developed over a long period of time. It is characteristic for Hinduism that the development of a new concept does not clash with the older ones or make them obsolete. Instead, older concepts are integrated into new developments (Malinar, 2009a). Moreover, the same concepts are adapted differently by different regions, cultural groups, castes, or sects, which results in a variety of concepts.

Regarding the concepts of afterlife, three historical periods of development can be distinguished. Roughly we can distinguish between the vedic, upanishadic, and puranic periods. The vedic period gave significance to ritual practice. Elaborate manuals assured a correct performance of highly complex ritual actions. Among the rituals that are still prevalent since vedic times are especially the life-cycle rituals concerning birth, marriage, and death. They are based on vedic scriptures and are still widely practiced throughout India. The vedic conception of afterlife focused on the world of the ancestors. Becoming an ancestor could not happen of itself or be provided by the gods, but it depended on the correct ritual performances of the descendants. The ritual actions included cremation rituals (antyeṣṭi) and postcremation death rituals (śrāddha) and, as part of the śrāddhas, the special ritual of sapiṇḍīkaraṇa. Only if all these rituals had been performed in the prescribed way could the deceased become an ancestor, establish him- or herself successfully in the realm of the ancestors, and provide the living with protection (Justice, 1937, 136.)

In the upanishadic period, a new metaphysical system developed that challenged the permanence of the ancestral beings who have settled in the world of the forefathers. The new concept of afterlife was grounded on the notion of the immortal, immaterial self (ātman,puruṣa) that is incorporated into a mortal human body for the duration of its lifetime. After leaving a specific body at the time of death, the ātman can either reincorporate itself into another body or attain mokṣa, liberation from the cycle of recurring embodiments. In the case of rebirth, the selection of a new body depends on a person’s karman, on the lifestyle and accomplishments of the present life. Escaping from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (saṃsāra) depends on practicing asceticism or bhakti and results in an immersion in the divine in a kind of unmanifest afterlife (mokṣa). To some extent the upanishadic concepts of ātman, saṃsāra, and mokṣa contradict the vedic concept of ancestors who exist in the realm of the forefathers and eventually are merged with the deities. Now, ancestors would not stay permanently in the realm of the forefathers but would at some point be reborn into the world of the living, unless they have attained mokṣa(Justice, 1997, 136). With these new conceptions of life, death, and afterlife, it is most desirable at least for Brahmans to attain mokṣa. Becoming an ancestor in the realm of the forefathers with an identity as a viśvadeva(all deities, world of the deities) is the second-best alternative and considered to be just one step on the way to eternal immortality.

In the puranic period, the epic texts Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata and some time later the Purāṇas had been written down as authoritative texts in which religious concepts and correct moral behavior were formulated. Epics and Purāṇas (especially the Garuḍapurāṇa, whose latter half deals with dying and the afterlife) are still significant and authoritative today. They are read during the funeral rituals, and people take them as orientation for their ritual behavior. The Pretakalpa of the Garuḍapurāṇa, which is frequently read in the last days of dying or during the antyeṣṭi and śrāddha rituals, describes very drastically what will happen to a person who has led an unvirtuous and selfish life without sincere devotion to god. Such a person will die in great pain a really bad death, and Yama’s messengers will brutally tear his puruṣa (individual self) out of his body (Malinar, 2009b, 84). In contrast, an honest and upright person who has lived a life of virtue according to the laws of dharma and who has consciously anticipated death by worshipping Viṣṇu will die a good death, reach heaven, and be reborn into a better existence (Malinar, 2009b, 85–86). Mukti or mokṣa, release from the cycle of death and rebirth, can be attained by sincere devotion to god, leading a pious life, and dying a good death. Besides these preconditions, renouncing the world,pilgrimages, vows (vratas), and offerings, and worshipping and praising the gods are necessary for knowing truth (satya ). The hour of death should be spent consciously in meditation, and the body should be relinquished at one’s own will (Malinar, 2009b, 88).

All these different concepts of afterlife exist side by side, without contradicting one another, in ritual praxis. In the performances of death rituals, the concept of saṃsāra, the concept of karman, the concept of mokṣa, and ancestor worship complement one another. This coexistence is shown best in the case of persons who come to die a good death in Benares and thus attain mokṣa immediately. Still then, śrāddha rituals are performed for the deceased to help them find their way into the realm of the ancestors.

Pretas, Ancestors, and the Afterlife

The concepts of an afterlife, of the transformation of the dead into spiritual beings, depend on the different ways of dying. One precondition for becoming an ancestor is dying a good death. Answering his famous question, “Who is a Hindu after death?” D. Knipe (1977) shows that a person who has died a good death enters the world of ancestors in the course of the rite of sapiṇḍikaraṇa. According to Brahmanical conceptions, ancestors are not a homogeneous category, but are distinguished into three groups: the pretas, the pitṛs, and the remote dead, theviśvedevas.

Immediately after death, the deceased has entered the state of a preta. This liminal state is considered dangerous, both for the deceased as well as for the bereaved. The deceased will not automatically become an ancestor but will linger on as a preta (ghost). As such, he might live in trees, near crossroads, or around the cremation ground.Pretas are hungry and malevolent, and they might harm their relatives. They might cling to the living and not be willing to leave them immediately. They might possess family members or even persons who happen to pass by. For 12 to 16 days, they are fed, pacified, and gradually transformed into nonliminal entities.

In the sapiṇḍikaraṇa ritual a preta becomes a pitṛ (ancestor, pl. pitaras), and the liminal phase of the preta ends. To unite the newly dead with the long-dead ancestors, the piṇḍa of the newly dead is mixed with the piṇḍas of the grandfather and father. As an ancestor, the deceased is remembered individually for three generations. The names of the deceased father, grandfather, and great grandfather are known to the relatives. After that the ancestors become more and more anonymous and are finally merged with the group of remote ancestors. According to vedic conceptions, the first three generations of ancestors reside in the three levels of the cosmos together with the three categories of deities.

"A deceased father lives as a pitṛ among the eight Vasus in the earth (pṛthivī), the Vasus being presided over by Indra or Agni. A deceased grandfather (pitāmaha) is a temporary resident of the midspace (antarikṣa) where the eleven Rudras, under the leadership of Rudra himself, are located. And a deceased great-grandfather (prapitāmaha) is in company of the twelve Ādityas in heaven (svarga), where either the god Varuṇa or Aditi, their mother, rules" (Knipe, 1977, 118).

Thus, the closest generation of ancestors lives in close association with the gods and can act as intermediaries between the living and the deities. As long as they are properly worshipped by their living relatives, the ancestors might intervene on their relatives’ behalf and ask the gods to protect them. This is in accordance with an overall concept of death and the regeneration of life that is found in many other societies as well.

Non-Brahmanical concepts of ancestors are slightly different. Dying a good death is a precondition but not a guarantee of becoming a benevolent ancestor. Even if the deceased has overcome the liminal state of a preta, as apitṛ he may not automatically provide the living with well-being and prosperity. It is the responsibility of his living relatives to worship him. Only then he can protect them. An ancestor who is not properly worshipped will harm his relatives in order to draw attention to himself.

In folk-death rituals in many regions, the dead are personified by crows. Crows join the śrāddha rituals, watch from a distance, and are fed with some of the offerings. Not only ancestors, but also the deified dead, may be incorporated in a crow. Whenever the deified dead are worshipped, a small bit of the offerings is given to the crows present. They wait patiently, and it is consoling for the bereaved to watch their dead child who came in the form of a crow accept the offering.

Malevolent Ghosts, Deified Dead, and Their Afterlife

In the case of a bad death, which occurs suddenly or too early in life, or which is caused by violence, the ghosts of the dead are not satisfied. Since they had to evacuate their body in an uncontrolled and involuntary way, their wishes are not fulfilled, and they cling to the living. Malevolent ghosts of the deceased (bhūtprets) are feared for their inauspicious powers and for harming and afflicting their near relatives. Contrary to ancestors, who due to their protective role regenerate life, malevolent ghosts are a threat to reproduction and the regeneration of life. By possessing persons, they are the cause of barrenness, miscarriages, childlessness, stillbirth, or the death of children. Usually, they will take possession of persons who are near to them, such as either neighbors or relatives. They live at crossroads, near cremation grounds, or in trees and wait for a victim to pass by. It is easy for them to possess persons who are in some kind of a liminal state or vulnerable for some reason or other, such as in states of ritual impurity. Malevolent spirits have to be exorcised by a ritual specialist and have to be kept at bay with amulets, or they have to be pacified with certain rituals and persuaded not to bother the person again. They can be propitiated by special rituals, but they never are pacified completely.

A violent and premature death is also a precondition for the transformation of the deceased person’s soul into a deified dead person. The fate of the deceased person’s spirit is not clear until it manifests itself to the living. In various South Indian traditions, a person who died by violence or too early will manifest itself in a living relative, either in his or her dreams or by possessing him or her. It is then up to the public to verify the identity of the spirit. It might be a malevolent spirit just deceiving the living, or it might indeed be a deified dead person. Once the deified status of the spirit is identified, it is helpful for the living, easily accessible, and good natured with regard to the faults and “sins” of its living relatives. As long as the deified dead are worshipped on a regular basis, they will act as mediators between living humans and deities, usually in favor of the human beings. In the beginning they might manifest themselves only temporarily in a human being during possession, where they are worshipped by the next of kin only. In case their benevolence and power spread, they might get a small shrine, and their fame might spread in the locality. If more people worship a deified dead person, his or her fame may spread over a larger region and eventually develop into a local deity. This will last as long as the deified dead person is remembered, definitely as long as near relatives take care of the cult. Eventually, as the relatives of the next generations might not tend to the cult of the deified dead any more, its significance will fade. Those killed violently are never reborn, since there is no concept of saṃsāra in folk tradition (Blackburn, 1985, 265).

All of these concepts and ritual actions in Hinduism aim at conquering death. The concept of ancestors who are “made” by the living and accompanied to their destination as pitṛs and viśvadevas, from where they protect the living and are concerned about their well-being, is just one way of coping with death. Ancestor worship seems to be the oldest rite. Another concept of the “total conquest of death” is found in the philosophies of the Upaniṣads. The idea of saṃsāra and mokṣa as the liberation from the cycle of rebirth and redeath is a way of conquering death, open mostly to high-caste persons. Finally, in popular Hinduism, even a violent death can be turned into an advantage for the living through various processes of deification. Worshipping the deified dead eventually conquers even bad deaths and secures the regeneration of life.