When a prince of high rank has just died, other princes, nobles and lords, in the order of their rank, step up one by one and pour a dipper of water upon the corpse. Certain officials in the household dress the body for a sitting posture in a pair of tightly-fitting short pantaloons and jacket, and over these a winding sheet wrapped around the body as firmly as possible. Thus prepared, the corpse is placed in a copper urn with an iron grating for its bottom, and this is put into one made of fine gold, with an outlet at the most pendent point, and a stopcock from which the fluid parts of the body are daily drawn off until it becomes quite dry. The golden urn is then placed on an elevated platform, while conch-shell blowers and trumpeters and pipers perform their several parts with the greatest possible harmony of such instruments. This act is called Ch’on p’ra sop K’u’n p’ra taan—literally, an invitation to the corpse to be seated on the platform.
When thus seated all the insignia of royalty which the prince was wont to have about him in life are arranged in due order at his feet—viz. his golden betel-box, his cigar-case, his golden spittoon, his writing apparatus, etc. The band of musicians now perform a funeral dirge; and they assemble daily at early dawn, at noon and at nightfall to perform in concert with a company of mourning women who bewail the dead and chant his virtues. In the intervals a company of Buddhist priests, four at a time, sitting on the floor a little distant from the platform, recite moral lessons and chant incantations in the Pali, with loud, clear, musical intonations.
This service is continued day and night, with only the intervals for the performance of the dirges and mourning women, and a few minutes each hour as the four priests retire and another four come in and take their place. This is kept up from week to week and month to month until the time appointed for burning the corpse has arrived, which may be from two to six or even eight months. The remains of a king are usually kept from eight to twelve months. (In the present case the remains have been kept seventeen months.)
In event of the death of a king his successor immediately begins preparations for the P’ramene, which is the splendid temporary building under which the body is to sit in state several days on a throne glittering with silver, gold and precious stones, and then and there to be committed to the flames.
The building is intended to be in size and grandeur according to the estimation in which the deceased was held. Royal orders are forthwith sent to the governors of four different provinces far away to the north, in which large timber abounds, requiring each of these to furnish one of the four large logs for the centre pillars of the P’ramene. These must be of the finest timber, usually the oil tree, very straight, two hundred feet long and proportionately large in circumference, which the writer has observed to be not less than twelve feet. There are always twelve other pillars, a little smaller in size, demanded at the same time from governors of other provinces, as also much other timber needful in the erection of the P’ramene and the numerous buildings connected with it.
CREMATION TEMPLE: A TEMPORARY BUILDING.
As sacred custom will not tolerate the use of pillars that have been used on any former occasion, new ones must be obtained for the funeral obsequies of each king. These four large pillars are very difficult to find, and can be floated down to the capital only at seasons of the year when the rivers where they are found are full. They are hauled to the banks of the streams by elephants and buffaloes. The great difficulty of procuring these pillars is one main cause of the usual long delay of the funeral burning of a king. When brought to the city they are hauled up to the place of the P’ramene chiefly by the muscular power of men working by means of a rude windlass and rollers under the logs. They are then hewed and planed a little—just enough to remove all crooks and other deformities—and finished off in a cylindrical form. Then they are planted in the ground thirty feet deep, one at each corner of a square not less than one hundred and sixty feet in circumference. When in their proper place they stand leaning a little toward each other, so that they describe the form of a four-sided, truncated pyramid from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty feet high. On the top of these is framed a pagoda-formed spire, adding from fifty to sixty more feet to the height of the structure. This upper part is octagonal, and so covered with yellow tin sheets and tinseled paper as to make a grand appearance at such a height, but it would not well bear close inspection.
Surrounding the P’ramene there is a new bamboo fence ten feet high, enclosing a square of more than two acres, with a gate midway on three sides. On the inside of this fence are numberless bamboo buildings, fantastically painted and papered, for the accommodation of the priests and nobles, one side of the square being chiefly occupied with buildings for the king’s own accommodation while attending the ceremonies of the royal cremation. These are distinguished from all others by having their roofs covered with crimson cloth, the peculiar horn-like projections at the two ends of their ridges, and by the golden drapery suspended in front and tastefully gathered up to the several posts of the hall.