Tibetan Sky Rituals
Each man calls barbarism, whatever is not his own practice
Michel de Montaigne
Buddhists in Tibet believe that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body so there really is no need to keep the empty vessel.
Therefore, the body is given back to the land in the form of Tibetan Sky Ritual (or Excarnation).
The procedure takes place on a large flat rock in a specific location. A monk and several rogyapas (body breakers) will dismember the body, grind down the bones and flesh and then feed it to vultures.
This ritual may seem, to some, as a brutal way of treating your loved one, but it really isn’t. In Buddhism, vultures are redeemed as sacred animals because they do not kill and instead simply accept what comes their way - so the Tibetans believe that they are quite simply sustaining life and returning a loved one to the nature that created them.
Moreover, because the terrain in Tibet is so hard, burials are almost impossible so it really is considered to be a practical way to dispose of the dead.
The custom kinda reminds me of a favourite poem of mine …
Vulture
I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
Bear downward staring. I said, “My dear bird, we are wasting time here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you.”
But how beautiful he looked, gliding down
On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the sea-light
over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes.
What a sublime end of one’s body, what and enskyment; what a life after death. – Robinson Jeffers -
Dig your way back to the Main Blog or check out My Funky Funeral’s homepage!