Among Buddhists, death is regarded as one of the occasions of major religious significance, both for the deceased and for the survivors. For the deceased, it marks the moment when the transition begins to a new mode of existence within the round of rebirths (see Bhavacakra). When death occurs, all the karmic forces that the dead person accumulated during the course of their lifetime become activated and determine the next rebirth. For the living, death is a powerful reminder of the Buddha's teaching on impermanence; it also provides an opportunity to assist the deceased person as they transition to a new existence.[1] There are several academic reviews of this subject.[2][3] In Buddhism, death marks the transition from this life to the next for the deceased.
For the non-Arhat, death is a time of transitioning to another rebirth; thus, the living participate in acts that transfer merit to the departed, either providing for a more auspicious rebirth or for the relief of suffering in the departed's new existence. For the living, ceremonies marking another's death are a reminder of life's impermanence, a fundamental aspect of the Buddha's teaching.[1][4] Death rites are generally the only life cycle ritual that Theravāda Buddhist monks get involved in and are therefore of great importance.
A distinctive ritual unique to funeral rites is the offering of cloth to monks. This is known as paṃsukūla in Pali, which means "forsaken robe". This symbolises the discarded rags and body shrouds that monks used for their robes during the time of the Buddha.[5]
Offering of cloth on behalf of the dead (mataka-vastra-puja): Before a cremation or a burial (depends on the will of the dead person or his/her relatives), at the deceased's home or cemetery, the funeral's presiding monastics are offered a white cloth to be subsequently stitched into monastic robes. During this ceremony, the following verse which was, according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, spoken by god Sakka after the death of the Buddha, is recited:
Impermanent alas are formations, subject to rise and fall. Having arisen, they cease; their subsiding is bliss.[1]
In addition, as relatives pour water from a vessel to an overflowing cup to symbolize the giving of merit to the deceased, the following verses are recited:
As water raining on a hill flows down to the valley, even so does what is given here benefit the dead.
As rivers full of water fill the ocean full, even so does what is given here benefit the dead.[7]
Yathā vārivahā pūrā paripūrenti sāgaraṃ Evameva ito dinnaṃ petānaṃ upakappati.[8]
Preaching for the benefit of the dead (mataka-bana): Within a week after the funeral (usually on the third day after), a monastic returns to the deceased's home to provide an appropriate hour-long sermon for surviving relatives and neighbors. The sermon is usually held on the sixth day after the death; family, friends and neighbours are often treated to a meal afterwards.[9]
Offering in the name of the dead (mataka-dana): Made three months after the funeral and then annually afterwards, the deceased's survivors hold an almsgiving on their behalf.[1]
In China, numerous instructive and merit-transferring ceremonies are held during the forty-nine days between death and rebirth. It is widely held that, without embarking on the path of spiritual cultivation and attaining the Four Higher Realms, the soul of the deceased will be transmigrated within the Six Realms of Existence. Helping the deceased to ascend to a higher realm (Chaodu, 超渡) becomes an important issue for family members or friends of the deceased within forty-nine days of their death. People often resort to methods such as chanting or recitation of Buddhist scriptures to help the deceased.[10][11]
For most Chinese funerals, if a Buddhist ceremony is chosen, the practice of recitation of the Amitabha Sutra and the name of Amitabha is an important part of death rites.[12] Many other scriptures or a combination of classic Buddhist scriptures, such as the Great Compassion Mantra, the Heart Sutra, the Amitabha Pure Land Rebirth Mantra and Sapta Atitabuddha Karasaniya Dharani (or Qi Fo Mie Zui Zhen Yan 七佛滅罪真言), are also commonly used.[13][14] Along with cultural practices, such as the burning of joss paper (which is discouraged by most practicing Buddhists), practitioners are often cremated.
Exposure of the Corpse
"Exposure of the Corpse" (Lushizang, 露屍葬) is the practice of placing the body of the deceased in an open area instead of using coffins or sarcophagi. In the Indian tradition, the practice of exposing the corpse included putting the body in the forest or sinking it underwater.[15] Originating from India, medieval Chinese monks also practiced exposing the corpse in the woods but so far no textual evidence supports the practice of water burial. In addition, cave burial (Shishi yiku 石室瘞窟) was also a type of Lushizang in medieval China.[16]
The point of exposing the corpse was to offer the body to hungry birds and beasts. After that, the remains were collected. There were three ways to dispose of the remains:
Collect the remains from the woods, bury them or place them in a pagoda
Cremate the remains, then bury the ashes or place them in a pagoda
Cremate the remains, then distribute the ashes in the woods or water
Cave burial
Starting from the third century AD, Chinese monks used caves as the resting place for the deceased. This funeral practice (石室瘞窟) may have been influenced by Central Asian practices.[17] Compared to forest burial, cave burial was less direct than exposure.
Before medieval times, the word "stone cave" (Shishi, 石室) can either mean the government library or suggest the main room in an ancestral temple (Zongmiao宗廟). To make Buddhist funerary caves, one can adopt the three methods:
Use natural caves or grottos
Make slight changes to existing grottos
Pile up stones to make new caves
To achieve the goal of giving one's body to the animals, most caves and grottos were open. The few exceptions include the north cliff of Longmen wanfo gou (龍門萬佛溝).[18] Generally, monks used the sitting position and practiced dhuta (Toutuo, 頭陀). These caves were reusable and most of them were found in Chang'an and Longmen. Dunhuang and Sichuan also have such caves.
Forest burial
Chinese monks began the practice of "forest burial" (Linzang, 林葬) from the fifth century CE. Reputedly the famous monk of the Eastern Jin, Huiyuan, was the first in China to practice forest burial.
This practice might have been very popular in the sixth century CE. According to the Book of Chen (陳書), even lay people attempted to adopt this funerary method. The term "Cool Grove" (Shituolin 屍陀林) was applied to describe the exposing place, or used as a general term for this practice.
After the sixth century CE, the number of documents recording forest burial increased. In Daoxuan's Biographies of Eminent Monks (Xugaosenzhuan 繼高僧傳), there were many stories with such descriptions. According to Daoxuan and other epitaphs of monks, there were two types of monks who practiced forest burial:[19]
the monks of the Three Stages Sect. This sect took both monks and lay practitioners including female believers. The most famous places for the Three Stages Sect were Zhongnan Mountains and Baoshan.
other monks of different sects, usually from the Chang’an area. They focused on Chan learning and valued lineage. Those monks practiced in temples such as Chang’an Yanxing Temple, Chang’an Shengguang Temple and Chang’an Qingchan Temple.
Mummification
While mummification does occur as a funeral custom in a variety of Buddhist traditions, it is not a common practice; cremation is more common. Many Mahayana Buddhist monks noted in their last testaments a desire for their students to bury them sitting in a lotus posture, put into a vessel full of coal, wood, paper and/or lime and surrounded by bricks, and be exhumed after approximately three years.[20] The preserved bodies would be painted with paints and adorned with gold. Many were so respected that they were preserved by their students. They were called "Corporeal Bodhisattvas", similar to that of the Roman Catholicincorruptibles. Many were destroyed during the cultural revolution in China, some were preserved, such as Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism and Kim Kiaokak, a Korean Buddhist monk revered as a manifestation of Ksitigarbha, and some have been discovered recently: one such was the Venerable Tzu Hang in Taiwan; another was the Venerable Yuet Kai in Hong Kong.
Other notable examples of Buddhist mummification are Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov in Siberia, Loung Pordaeng in Thailand, and a 15th-century Tibetan monk from Northern India examined by Victor Mair in the documentary The Mystery of the Tibetan Mummy. While the documentary suggests that the monk may have consumed poisonous matters on purpose, there is no proof of such practice for any of the mentioned persons, so the poisonous substances occasionally found in their remains may have been applied to their corpses by their followers.
Tibetan traditions
A person who is dying and who is recently dead will have for example the Tibetan Book of the Dead read to them (in the Nyingma tradition) to help guide them through the transition period (Tib.: bardo) between lives, easing attachments to this life and deepening bodhisattva wisdom. The corpse is either cremated or dismembered and fed to vultures (Tib.: jhator).[12]
Other Tibetan traditions have other special texts read and rituals performed, which may also be personalized to the specific (vajrayana) practice a person focused on during his/her life. As the bardo is generally said to last a maximum of 49 days, these rituals usually last 49 days.
Death and dying is an important subject in Tibetan Buddhism as it is a most critical period for deciding which karma will ripen to lead one to the next rebirth, so a proper control of the mind at the death process is considered essential.
After prolonged meditation, the meditator continues into the bardo or even towards enlightenment. Great masters are often cremated, and their ashes stored as relics in stupas.
In Tibet, firewood was scarce, and the ground often not suitable for burial, so the unusual practice of feeding the body to vultures or other animals developed. Known in Tibetan as jhator and literally translated as "Alms to the Birds", this practice is known as Sky burial. One can see this also as an offering to these animals, a last act of generosity and detachment to one's own body.
↑ Yagi, D. K. (1988). "Protestant Perspectives on Ancestor Worship in Japanese Buddhism: The Funeral and the Buddhist Altar". Buddhist-Christian Studies. 15 (1): 16–37.
↑ See also, for example, in the Pali Canon, awareness of another's death is often referred to as one of the "messengers" from the lord of the Underworld meant to spur one onto a more wholesome life.[full citation needed]
↑ LANGER, RITA (20 September 2013). "From Riches to Rags: how new clothes for the dead become old robes for monks". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 24 (1): 125–144. doi:10.1017/S1356186313000345. S2CID162900930.
↑ Lu, Jun Hong (22 April 2018). A Guide to Reciting the Combination of Buddhist Scriptures. Sydney, Australia. ISBN978-1-925798-33-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
↑ Schopen, Gregory. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers On the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism In India. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. p. 204-237
↑ Liu, Shufen. Zhong Gu De Fo Jiao Yu She Hui. Di 1 ban. Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she, 2008. p. 188
↑ Liu, Shufen. Zhong Gu De Fo Jiao Yu She Hui. Di 1 ban. Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she, 2008. p. 255
↑ Zhang Naizhu, Longmen shiku tangdai yiku de xinfaxian jiqi wenhuayiyi de tantao. p. 164
↑ Liu, Shufen. Zhong Gu De Fo Jiao Yu She Hui. Di 1 ban. Shanghai: Shanghai gu ji chu ban she, 2008. p. 197
Harvey, Peter (1990). An introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, history and practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University. ISBN0-521-31333-3.
Kariyawasam, A.G.S. (1995). Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals of Sri Lanka (The Wheel Publication No. 402/404). Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Retrieved 2007-10-22 from "Access to Insight" (1996 transcription) at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/kariyawasam/wheel402.html.
Langer, Rita (2007). Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth: A study of contemporary Sri Lankan practice and its origins. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN0-415-39496-1
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. Funerals have both normative and legal components. Common secular motivations for funerals include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering support and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may have religious aspects that are intended to help the soul of the deceased reach the afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.
In some schools of Buddhism, bardo or antarābhava is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. The concept arose soon after Gautama Buddha's death, with a number of earlier Buddhist schools accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it. The concept of antarābhava, an intervening state between death and rebirth, was brought into Buddhism from the Vedic-Upanishadic philosophical tradition. Later Buddhism expanded the bardo concept to six or more states of consciousness covering every stage of life and death. In Tibetan Buddhism, bardo is the central theme of the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text intended to both guide the recently deceased person through the death bardo to gain a better rebirth and also to help their loved ones with the grieving process.
The majority of funerals in Japan include a wake, the cremation of the deceased, a burial in a family grave, and a periodic memorial service. According to 2007 statistics, 99.81% of deceased Japanese are cremated.
The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta is Sutta 16 in the Dīgha Nikāya, a scripture belonging to the Sutta Piṭaka of Theravāda Buddhism. It concerns the end of Gautama Buddha's life - his parinibbāna - and is the longest sutta of the Pāli Canon. Because of its attention to detail, it has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard accounts of the Buddha's death.
Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially carrion birds like vultures and corvids. Comparable excarnation practices are part of Zoroastrian burial rites where deceased are exposed to the elements and scavenger birds on stone structures called Dakhma. Sky burials are endemic to Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia, as well as in Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, and parts of India such as Sikkim and Zanskar. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions as charnel grounds. Few such places remain operational today, as the Chinese Communist Party initially banned the practice completely during the Cultural Revolution as feudal superstition, and continues to restrict the practice due to its allegations of decimation of vulture populations.
Disposal of human corpses, also called final disposition, is the practice and process of dealing with the remains of a deceased human being. Disposal methods may need to account for the fact that soft tissue will decompose relatively rapidly, while the skeleton will remain intact for thousands of years under certain conditions.
Preta, also known as hungry ghost, is the Sanskrit name for a type of supernatural being described in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion as undergoing suffering greater than that of humans, particularly an extreme level of hunger and thirst. They have their origins in Indian religions and have been adopted into East Asian religions via the spread of Buddhism. Preta is often translated into English as "hungry ghost" from the Chinese and East Asian adaptations. In early sources such as the Petavatthu, they are much more varied. The descriptions below apply mainly in this narrower context. The development of the concept of the preta started with just thinking that it was the soul and ghost of a person once they died, but later the concept developed into a transient state between death and obtaining karmic reincarnation in accordance with the person's fate. In order to pass into the cycle of karmic reincarnation, the deceased's family must engage in a variety of rituals and offerings to guide the suffering spirit into its next life. If the family does not engage in these funerary rites, which last for one year, the soul could remain suffering as a preta for the rest of eternity.
Upāsaka (masculine) or Upāsikā (feminine) are from the Sanskrit and Pāli words for "attendant". This is the title of followers of Buddhism who are not monks, nuns, or novice monastics in a Buddhist order, and who undertake certain vows. In modern times they have a connotation of dedicated piety that is best suggested by terms such as "lay devotee" or "devout lay follower".
The brahmavihārā are a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables or four infinite minds. The brahmavihārā are:
loving-kindness or benevolence
compassion
empathetic joy
equanimity
In Buddhism, Jāti (Sanskrit/Pāli), "birth", refers to physical birth; to rebirth, the arising of a new living entity within saṃsāra ; and to the arising of mental phenomena.
An Uposatha day is a Buddhist day of observance, in existence since the Buddha's time, and still being kept today by Buddhist practitioners. The Buddha taught that the Uposatha day is for "the cleansing of the defiled mind," resulting in inner calm and joy. On this day, both lay and ordained members of the sangha intensify their practice, deepen their knowledge and express communal commitment through millennia-old acts of lay-monastic reciprocity. On these days, the lay followers make a conscious effort to keep the Five Precepts or the ten precepts. It is a day for practicing the Buddha's teachings and meditation.
In Buddhism, symbolic offerings are made to the Triple Gem, giving rise to contemplative gratitude and inspiration. Typical material offerings involve simple objects such as a lit candle or oil lamp, burning incense, flowers, food, fruit, water or drinks.
A kapala is a skull cup used as a ritual implement (bowl) in both Hindu Tantra and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra (Vajrayana). Especially in Tibetan Buddhism, kapalas are often carved or elaborately mounted with precious metals and jewels.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, "the awakened one".
During the Pre-Hispanic period the early Filipinos believed in a concept of life after death. This belief, which stemmed from indigenous ancestral veneration and was strengthened by strong family and community relations within tribes, prompted the Filipinos to create burial customs to honor the dead through prayers and rituals. Due to different cultures from various regions of the Philippines, many different burial practices have emerged. For example, the Manobos buried their dead in trees, the Ifugaos seated the corpse on a chari before it was brought to a cave and buried elsewhere. The most common forms of traditional burials are supine pits, earthenware jars, and log coffins, and have been a topic of interest among Philippine archaeologists since the early 20th century.
A shmashana is a Hindu crematory ground, where dead bodies are brought to be burnt on a pyre. It is usually located near a river or body of water on the outskirts of a village or town; as they are usually located near river ghats, they are also regionally called smashan ghats.
Chinese funeral rituals comprise a set of traditions broadly associated with Chinese folk religion, with different rites depending on the age of the deceased, the cause of death, the deceased's marital and social statuses. Different rituals are carried out in different parts of China, many contemporary Chinese people carry out funerals according to various religious faiths such as Buddhism or Christianity. However, in general, the funeral ceremony itself is carried out over seven days, and mourners wear funerary dress according to their relationship to the deceased. Traditionally, white clothing is symbolic of the dead, while red is not usually worn, as it is traditionally the symbolic colour of happiness worn at Chinese weddings. The number three is significant, with many customary gestures being carried out three times.
Thai funerals usually follow Buddhist funerary rites, with variations in practice depending on the culture of the region. People of certain religious and ethnic groups also have their own specific practices. Thai Buddhist funerals generally consist of a bathing ceremony shortly after death, daily chanting by Buddhist monks, and a cremation ceremony. Cremation is practised by most peoples throughout the country, with the major exceptions being ethnic Chinese, Muslims and Christians.
The use of death horoscopes in Tibetan Buddhism is an old practice that still sees application today. There are several types of horoscopes used in this religion, including a birth horoscope, a life forecast, an annual horoscope, a marriage horoscope, and a death horoscope. When casting the death horoscope, Tibetan Buddhists place great importance on the corpse, especially within the first three days following its death. There are several purposes for a death horoscope, and carrying out this practice must be done carefully. Additionally, a death horoscope is intended as a loving act for the dead, and a precautionary measure for the family of the deceased. Many Tibetans believe that when a death occurs within the family, other family members' lives are jeopardized, so this practice may be considered essential to both the living and dead. Tibetan Buddhists also believe that their deceased loved ones may spend a short period in hell to pay for sins in their past life.
Phongyibyan is a Burmese language term for the ceremonial cremation of high-ranking Buddhist monks, in particular monks from Myanmar's largest Buddhist order, the Thudhamma Nikaya.
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