Vasudha narayanan professor of religion at the university of florida and. Hinduism like other great religions has specific rituals for honoring the deceased and addressing a family s grief. The officiant is a hindu priest who also presides over all the hindu funeral rites leading the family and other mourners in the various hindu death rituals.
Hindu funeral rites take the form of chants or mantras which are specially written to be chanted at funerals. Death is the death of the body not the soul and many of the customs around hindu funerals are to ease the. Karma is determined by actions in the most recent life as well as past lives.
Hindu death and funeral rituals and traditions hindu beliefs include the concept of reincarnation with an individual s next form being tied to their karma. This brings about disintegration of. By pouring gangājal and placing tulsī basil leaves in the mouth sattva waves from the universe get attracted to these sāttvik objects placed in the mouth.
Often when the prān vital energy leaves the gross body the mouth remains open and through this open mouth putrefying waves from the dead body spread into the environment. Rituals after death. Purification usually with water is thus a typical feature of most religious actions.
Religious acts presuppose some degree of impurity or defilement for the practitioner which must be overcome or neutralized before or during ritual procedures. The most notable feature in hindu religious ritual is the division between purity and pollution. This of course affects the ways of hindu death rituals today.
This makes them believe that death is a natural event as a part of someone s life or life regarding souls. Once a person dies they are born again into someone else. In addition the hindus believe in the reincarnation or the samsara of the atman.
Once moksha is attained the soul will be absorbed into brahman the.
Death rituals in hinduism. The irish poet oscar wilde once said one can survive everything nowadays except death dying is accepted as a part of life and when one dies there are a multitude of rituals and ceremonies that need to be performed. Let s take a look at the various death rituals that the hindus perform. Hindu death rituals in all traditions follow a fairly uniform pattern drawn from the vedas with variations according to sect region caste and family tradition. Most rites are fulfilled by the.
Hindu funeral rites and rituals may vary depending on the sect family traditions and the location of the family of the dead person. Cremation is usually the norm in hindu funerals. According to hindu death rituals when a person dies they remain at home before they are taken to the cremation venue. Generally hindus believe that life and death are part of the concept of samsara or rebirth.
The ultimate goal for many hindus is to become free from desire thereby escaping samsara and attaining moksha the transcendent state of salvation.
The ultimate goal for many hindus is to become free from desire thereby escaping samsara and attaining moksha the transcendent state of salvation. Generally hindus believe that life and death are part of the concept of samsara or rebirth. According to hindu death rituals when a person dies they remain at home before they are taken to the cremation venue.
Cremation is usually the norm in hindu funerals. Hindu funeral rites and rituals may vary depending on the sect family traditions and the location of the family of the dead person. Most rites are fulfilled by the.
Hindu death rituals in all traditions follow a fairly uniform pattern drawn from the vedas with variations according to sect region caste and family tradition. Let s take a look at the various death rituals that the hindus perform. The irish poet oscar wilde once said one can survive everything nowadays except death dying is accepted as a part of life and when one dies there are a multitude of rituals and ceremonies that need to be performed.
