How different religions give respect to their dead ones.
A brief note about the funeral practices of different religions around the world.
Earth is a dynamic sphere. It is inhabitated by people of various cultures, color, language and religion. Each ethnicities have their own way of fashion, food, and lifestyles. From city dwellers seen in Europe to village tribes seen in Africa, each aspect of their life is different. Religion is one of the aspects of life which shows broad distinction from countires to countries. Religion is an old concept.Some people tends to follow their religion from birth and some chooses not to. It varies from people to people. Each Individuals are different.But no matter who you are, or how much different you are from others, there is only one thing which we as human beings goes through equally. That is death. Death is inevitable. One can say each day we are a step closer to embrace the cold hugs of death. Every Individual goes through death. The process of body going numb, your organs cease to work and finally your soul leaves your body, its a natural process. Every one has the same definition of death, that is to cease to exist from this world. Now death maybe same for everyone. But the way of respecting death of a person is different from religion to religion. The whole concept of death and after life is different from religion to religion. Hence each religion has their own distinctive way of funerals. This article sheds light on such different methods. Try telling me which way of funeral you prefer in the comments.
1.Burying the dead
Now this has to be the most renowned way of disposing the dead. The dead body is properly enclosed in a wooden box and is buried inside a hole dug on the ground. After doing proper rituals and prayers the hole is filled with soil. A tombstone is made in memory of the dead. Abrahmic religions like Christianity, Islamism, Judaism follows the method of burying their dead. Sometimes Buddhists also Bury their dead along with cremation.
Fun fact : Taj Mahal in India one of the seven wonders of the world is actually a mausoleum which is built in memory of Mumtaz the beloved wife of emperor Shah Jahan. So technically it’s a big beautiful tomb!
2. Cremation of the dead
Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world. It is practiced in South asian countries like India, Nepal, Srilanka, etc. Infact Hinduism is the major religion in India. In Hinduism dead bodies are cremated after performing Hindu rituals and prayers. There are specific places designated for performing these funeral pyres. The funeral Pyre is lit by the eldest son of the deceased or a preist. Daughters are prohibited to do this since Hinduism believes that the deceased won’t get ‘Moksha’(Eternal peace) and would be stuck in a endless cycle of after life. According to Hinduism, when a person dies, the soul doesn’t get detached from the body that easily. This will make the process of attaining Moksha more difficult. Also Fire is considered pure (purification by fire) and holy in Hinduism. Hence cremation is preferred over burying in Hinduism. After cremating the dead body, the ashes are collected and are poured into Holy rivers like Ganges to complete the ritual. Jainism which has resemblance with Hinduism also adopt to cremation of their dead.
3. Mummification of the dead.
I think Mummification and Mummies are popular worldwide due to the popularity they got from Hollywood movies.
Mummification means the preservation of dead bodies with various natural preservatives and aromatics. In this process the internal organs are removed (except heart )and are preseved in specialized canopic jars. According to Egyptian religion, the heart is weighed with a feather in afterlife. Mummification was a time consuming process and was done for elites. The dead body are tied up in cloths and is put inside a sarcophagus. Then this Sarcophagus is put inside a tomb (Not buried) with the deceased’s personal properties. According to Egyptian mythology, the deceased will need his physical body in after life, hence they were preserved well.
4. Feeding the dead body to animals like vultures and other scavengers.
Now this may sound bad and disrespectful, but religion like Zoroastrianism considers dead bodies to be impure. They consider earth and fire to be pure. And burial or cremation of dead bodies makes them impure. Hence dead bodies are left in an open place called Dhakma, also called the ‘Tower of silence’.
On these towers the body is left alone and is consumed by flock of vultures.
Parsis a group belonging to Zoroastrianism in India is facing difficulties in their funeral methods because of the decline in numbers of vultures in India. The deadbody which gets consumed within minuted by a big flock of hungry vultures is now taking days to be consumed. This lead to decaying and bad odour in the surroundings.
These are the few intresting funeral methods present in different religions around the world. These methods even tho are different on religious basis, they all give us an insight of how temporary we are in this world. No matter what you do in your life, one day everyone has to die. You are like a small dot in this cosmos. You are born out of nature and your end point is to join in the same. Let’s not take our lives granted and make use maximum of it.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading my post. If you do please leave 50 claps. Thank you for reading 🙂
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