If the dead man’s family is poor, a copper coin or even a betel nut will suffice. Next the monks are sent for, their immediate presence being necessary to keep off the evil spirits who always swarm near a corpse. After an interval the body is placed in a coffin, which is sometimes gilded and placed on a bier under a canopy. When the right day arrives for the funeral, a long procession is formed, with a number of priests in proportion to the amount of alms bestowed, and a crowd of relations, friends, and neighbours. Occasionally those who carry the bier stop and go through a sort of solemn dance, while mournful tunes are played by the musicians and funeral dirges are sung. The body is finally buried in a cemetery to the west of the town or village. A funeral must never go to the north or to the east. The ceremony concludes by alms to the priests, who in return intone the commandments and other portions of the Law in Pāli. After the funeral, great festivities go on in the family-abode for the benefit of the crowds who come to offer condolence. Then the presence of the priests is again needed, and has to be paid for by alms to the monastery, or the evil spirits, who are sure to hang about, cannot be got rid of. In some parts of Burma the cremation of rich laymen is not uncommon, and the ashes are either deposited in Dāgabas—that is, in small Stūpas or Pagodas[171]—or are pounded into paste and made into miniature Stūpas ([p. 506]) or into small images of the Buddha for worship at the domestic altar.
In Tibet and Mongolia the corpses of the laity, especially of the poor, are often exposed in the fields, in deserts, or on mountain tops, or rocks, or in lonely ravines, or sometimes in open places enclosed for the purpose. Occasionally they are covered with a thin layer of earth or loose stones. Usually they are devoured by vultures, dogs, and other animals.
It seems that in Lhāssa certain dogs are kept for that purpose[172]. A class of professional men exist there, whose business it is to cut up dead bodies, and throw the flesh piecemeal to dogs and vultures. Even the bones are sometimes pounded, and the dust, being mixed with flour, is given to be devoured. The strange thing is, that this kind of burial is thought desirable, and even honourable. To be eaten up by sacred dogs after death is productive of great merit, and leads to re-birth in higher forms. Dogs are the mausoleums of Lhāssa.
According to M. Huc, a common funeral ceremony among the Mongols consists in carrying the corpse to the summit of a mountain, or to the bottom of a ravine. The body is walled up in a sort of kiln of a pyramidal form, with a small door at the bottom, and an opening at the top to maintain a current of air, and allow the smoke to escape. During the combustion the Lāmas recite prayers. When the corpse is consumed, the kiln is demolished. Then the bones are collected and carried to the Grand Lāma, who reduces them to a powder, and, after adding an equal quantity of wheaten flour, kneads the whole carefully, and, with his own hands, fashions a number of cakes of various sizes. These are afterwards placed in a pyramidal Stūpa, which has been built beforehand in some auspicious place.
The soil of the famous monastery of the Five Towers in the province of Shan Si, is said to be so holy that those interred there are sure to effect a good transmigration. In the deserts of Tartary, Mongols are frequently seen carrying on their shoulders the bones of their kindred, and journeying to the Five Towers—there to purchase, almost at its weight in gold, a little surface of ground whereon to erect a small Stūpa. Some of them undertake a toilsome journey of a whole year’s duration, to reach this holy spot (see [p. 435]).
Burial in rivers, which is highly prized by the Hindūs, is not in favour among Buddhists. Only very poor people allow their dead to be thrown into rivers, though this is the only kind of Buddhist burial mentioned by Alberūnī (Sachau, ii. 169). Buddhism, from the first, repudiated the Hindū funeral ceremonies called Ṡrāddhas, which are still a great incubus on the people. The poorest man in India, if he be of high caste, cannot perform a Ṡrāddha for a relation for a less sum than forty rupees, given in fees to the priests. Buddhism did good service in delivering the people from this burden, but in Northern countries it established something similar in the Bardo ceremony ([p. 334]).
Formularies of Prayer.
With regard to prayer-formularies, there is in modern times a good deal of difference between Southern and Northern Buddhist countries. We have seen that the three-refuge formulary was the sole prayer of early Buddhists. Certain orthodox men whom I met in Ceylon, maintained to me that this is the only legitimate form of prayer that ought to be used even in the present day. It is certainly a form which is accepted and employed by all Buddhists of whatever nationality.
Tsong Khapa, it is said, established at Lhāssa an annual prayer-congregation called Monlam Ćhenpo (see [p. 386]). But the most common prayer used in Tibet is a mere formulary, the constant repetition of which is one of the most amazing instances of the tyranny of superstition to be found in any part of the world.
It consists of the six-syllabled sentence, Om maṇi padme Hūm, ‘Om! the Jewel in the Lotus! Hūm!’