10-01-2006, 02:49 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Dear ishwa ji, thank you for sharing your insight. Your posts are always enlightening.Â
You did mention cremation, burial, and exposing (like Parsees). There is one more mode which is very common among Hindus even today - submitting the dead body to rivers. It is a tradition, followed in rural areas of UP/Bihar/Nepal to limited extent even to this day, that if someone dies an Akaal Mrityu (untimely death), or death of an infant etc, this is the preferred mode of last rites.Â
Do you have any information about historicity of this tradition? Or example of any famous person's last rites done like this? Mentions in Vedas?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dear Bodhi ji, thanks. The mode of submitting bodies to rivers is the Uddhita form of the Atharvaveda. The body is given back to all the possible elements for purification, except to fire, which got a special (practical) purifying status.
Perhaps the original basis of all funeral types is an original Uddhita: Aagneya exposure is cremation, Paarthiva exposure is burial, Vaayaviiya then became the restricted Uddhita as anagnidagdha (like the Parsis), Audaka is then the one practised especially in Praacya. And there are combined forms.
The Atharvaveda refers to Uddhita and other forms, while its geograpgy is from Magadha/Anga to Gandhara, thus knowing all variations of funeral modes.
regards, ishwa
You did mention cremation, burial, and exposing (like Parsees). There is one more mode which is very common among Hindus even today - submitting the dead body to rivers. It is a tradition, followed in rural areas of UP/Bihar/Nepal to limited extent even to this day, that if someone dies an Akaal Mrityu (untimely death), or death of an infant etc, this is the preferred mode of last rites.Â
Do you have any information about historicity of this tradition? Or example of any famous person's last rites done like this? Mentions in Vedas?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dear Bodhi ji, thanks. The mode of submitting bodies to rivers is the Uddhita form of the Atharvaveda. The body is given back to all the possible elements for purification, except to fire, which got a special (practical) purifying status.
Perhaps the original basis of all funeral types is an original Uddhita: Aagneya exposure is cremation, Paarthiva exposure is burial, Vaayaviiya then became the restricted Uddhita as anagnidagdha (like the Parsis), Audaka is then the one practised especially in Praacya. And there are combined forms.
The Atharvaveda refers to Uddhita and other forms, while its geograpgy is from Magadha/Anga to Gandhara, thus knowing all variations of funeral modes.
regards, ishwa