Sky Burial

Today's news about Tibet's earthquake ...In case you're too lazy/busy to read, the summary is that thousands of people died and because of the sheer numbers, they had to resort to mass cremation instead of their traditional 'sky burial'. This involves chopping up the dead bodies into specific parts and leaving it to the vultures and the elements to dispose of the parts. Apparently, there were not enough vultures to carry out the job.

YUSHU, China -- Vultures wheeled above a grieving crowd after a traditional "sky burial" on Saturday, and Tibetans held a mass cremation after an earthquake devastated part of northwest China this week.


The death toll reached 1,339 with 332 missing, Xinhua news agency said, after a 6.9 magnitude quake hit Yushu county in Qinghai province, where most residents are ethnic Tibetans, devoted to their own branch of Buddhism.


Thousands of people converged on a hillside cremation site, where a convoy of trucks took many hundreds of bodies that had been kept at the main local monastery.


Many wept and chanted as crimson-gowned monks lit the piles of bodies covered in yak oil, wood and old tires. Hundreds of monks droned prayer-chants as the flames rose above the trenches, sending a column of smoke into the sky.


"People will feel very sad for a long time," said Dashi, a middle-aged local man in the crowd. "Tibetans have never experienced such a disaster in 2,500 years."


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SKY BURIAL


The Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader to whom many of Yushu's inhabitants say they are loyal but whom Beijing reviles as a "separatist" for demanding autonomy for his homeland, said he longed to go to the area.


"When Taiwan was struck by a typhoon last year, I was able to visit the affected families and pray with them for those who had perished in that disaster," the Dalai Lama said in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala.


"At present, I am unable to comfort those directly affected, but I would like them to know I am praying for them," he said, while commending Chinese authorities' quick relief efforts.


Before the cremation, some monks higher up on the hillside oversaw a small "sky burial", when parts of the dead were fed to the vultures, who were later seen circling through the smoke billowing from the hillside fire.


An ethnic Tibetan man called Zhaxi said one of the dead fed to the vultures, who have wingspans of almost two metres was his uncle, Suona, who died in the quake, crushed in his home. Zhaxi said the family had paid for the ceremony.


"If you can do it, a sky burial is the best way, the most pure way," said Zhaxi. "This is what our tradition expects."


Others remain buried beneath crumpled buildings. Several people were pulled out alive from rubble on Saturday morning, state television said.


For the residents of Yushu, the mourning was an interlude as they struggled to put together their lives.


Residents and army and police rescue teams, as well as the monks, picked through collapsed homes, looking for the dead and possible survivors, as well as bits and pieces to make life living in tents or in the cold outdoors a little easier.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Tibetans+cremate+dead+quake+toll+rises/2914797/story.html#ixzz0lStanB26

I'm amazed at the Tibetan concept of burial. For most of us in modernized societies, the body of a loved one is almost sacred. We get the body embalmed and take pains to make sure the makeup looks natural. The deceased puts on his best suit and favourite watch/accessory. We then encase the dead in an elegant coffin for the funeral before saying a final tearful goodbye in a cremation or burial. 


Can't imagine paying the undertaker-monk to chop up my relative/friend into gory bits before taking the parts up the mountain. What more to watch giant vultures swooping overhead feast on the human remains, all in the name of "alms to the birds." Then at the end of the day, to revisit the site and see only bones in its place, maybe an eyeball or a decomposed finger. What a last visage that would be! No place of rememberance, no tablet to cherish, no urn of ashes for a memorial. No doubt the Tibetans would remember their deceased loved ones in their hearts, but how quickly the dead would be forgotten!

Pic from Wikipedia. I wouldn't enjoy having my dead body stripped naked for some monks to slice up and mix with barley and yak oil (tsampa). If you want more gory details, click the link below to Wikipedia to get the low down on how the body is processed.

These birds are enormous! This is not the end of the body yet...even the bones are hacked and crushed and mixed with tsampa to coax the birds to eat. Oh my...


According to Wikipedia , the religious aspect is that since Buddhists believe in rebirth, the body is an empty vessel. There is no need to preserve it. On the practical aspect, because Tibet has hard and rocky ground, digging a grave is difficult; it also has limited wood and fuel, so cremation is also not ideal. Well, to coin it "sky burial" is very fanciful and misleading. Definitely nothing to do with the sky, but more of a gruesome ritual.


As for me, I'm just glad I'm not Tibetan.