Notwithstanding the fact that in countries professing the lamaistic form of Buddhism dead bodies are unceremoniously exposed to the open air, and left as a prey to birds or dogs, the mortality of the laity "forms, with their sicknesses, the richest source of income for the priests." A great deal, says the author from whom we draw this information, depends on the separation of soul and body taking place according to rule; and it is important that the spirit should not injure those who are left, and should meet with a happy re-birth. The Lama therefore attends the death-bed, takes care to place the deceased in the correct position, and observes the hour of departure. An operation is then performed on the skin of the head, which is supposed to liberate the soul. What rites are now to be performed, how the body is to be disposed of, towards what quarter it is to be turned, and various other details, depend on astrological combinations known only to the clergy. But their most important and profitable business is the repetition of masses, for the dead, which are designed to pacify the avenging deities, and to help the soul towards as favorable a career as is possible for it. The length of time during which these masses are said varies with the wealth of the survivors; poor people obtaining them for a few days only; the richer classes for seven weeks; and princes being able to assist the spirits of their relations for a whole year (R. B., vol. ii. p. 323-325).
Among the Parsees the cemeteries consist of desolate, open places, on which the corpses are deposited and left exposed to the air. These places are called Dakhmas, and are carefully consecrated by the priests with an elaborate ceremonial. The position of the dead in the Dakhmas is fixed by the religious law. Their dying moments and those that succeed upon death are watched over by the Parsee faith, which has determined the prayers to be repeated during the last hour of life; before the body is placed upon the bier; when it is carried out; on the way to the Dakhma, and at the Dakhma itself. The ceremonies required on these occasions must be performed by the Maubads, or priests. But the due disposal of the body by no means concludes the duties of relations towards the dead. The welfare of the soul also demands numerous prayers. Being supposed to linger for three days in the immediate neighborhood of the corpse, it is the object during that time of especial attention, and the rites then performed may be of use to it in the judgment which takes place on the fourth day. Prayers are to be recited, and offerings made on the 30th and 31st day after death, and even then the ceremonies attending the close of mortal existence are not concluded, for it is necessary after the lapse of a year again to celebrate the memory of the departed. Moreover, the 26th chapter of the Yasna, a hymn of praise and blessing, is to be said every day during the year before eating (Av. vol. ii. p. xxxii-xlii).
Masses for the dead are no less common in Christian countries (save where the Protestant faith is professed), than among Buddhists and Parsees. Their object also is precisely the same; namely, the welfare of the soul which has quitted its earthly home to enter on a new form of being. And although no such prayers are repeated in Protestant communities, yet there can be no doubt that interment in due form, and with due solemnity, is held by the people, even in England, to benefit the soul in some undefined way. Nor is any portion of the ritual of the English Church more impressive than that passage in the Burial Service where the officiating priest consigns "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ."
But it is not only the due performance of these last rites which popular opinion associates with the prospect of salvation in the world to come. As in other religions, so in that of our own country, the position of the body in the tomb is deemed to be of vast importance. The head must be westward and the feet eastward, the nominal reason being that the dead person should rise from his temporary abode with his face to the east, whence Christ will come; the real reason being in all probability the survival of a much older custom, in which that venerable divinity, the Sun, stood in the place of the Savior of mankind.
CHAPTER II.
CONSECRATED PLACES.
Consecrated actions of various kinds being the primary method of approaching the beings in whose honor they are performed, there remain various secondary methods; sometimes tending to heighten the effect of the primary method, sometimes supplementing it. These secondary means of giving effect to the religious sentiment may be divided into three classes:—the consecration of places, of things, and of persons; while the last of these falls into two subdivisions: the self-dedication of certain individuals to their deity, and the dedication of a certain class to the more special performance of religious services on behalf of the community.
Consecration of places evidently confers on the actions performed within them a higher sanctity. Prayer offered in a place which has been devoted to the service of God is more likely to be successful. Praise from within its walls will be more acceptable. Wedlock contracted under its influence will be more solemn, and will possess a more binding character. Children may most fitly enter upon life by a profession of faith made in their behalf in a consecrated temple. And the bodies of the dead will rest more peacefully in consecrated earth.
It is scarcely needful to offer evidence of the fact that in various lands, and by many kinds of belief, the performance of certain ceremonies is held to consecrate places to the purpose of communication between man and the higher powers. From the savage in Sierra Leone, where "a small shed of dry leaves" presents perhaps the rudest form of temple to be found on earth (S. L., p. 65), to the European who worships his God in St. Peter's or Westminster Abbey, the same opinion prevails. Everywhere the consecration of places is conceived to render them fitter for the celebration of religious rites, and unfit for all profaner uses.
Of the state of feeling with which such localities are endowed by the ordinary worshiper, an excellent example is offered in Solomon's speech at the dedication of the temple. He specially requests Jehovah that when prayers are made to him in this place, or toward this place, he will hear such prayers: that is, he expects that the sanctity he will confer upon the temple, by devoting it to Jehovah, will add something to the efficacy of petitions in which it is in some way concerned. The manner in which he dedicates the temple may serve, too, as a type of this kind of ceremony. "Solomon," we are told, "offered a sacrifice of peace-offerings, which he offered unto the Lord, two-and-twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep." With this barbaric magnificence he "dedicated the house of the Lord," and he subsequently hallowed the middle of the court by "burnt-offerings, and meat-offerings, and the fat of the peace-offerings" (1 Kings viii). How great was the respect attached to this temple by the Israelites, and how anxiously they sought to guard it against such profanation as it received at the hands of Pompey, is well known.
The lavish splendor with which Solomon adorned his temple is a common feature of consecrated places. Like the ancient Hebrews, the Mexicans and Peruvians had buildings in honor of their gods, of extreme magnificence. The temple of Pachacamac, or the Creator, in Peru, was a very large and ancient building, richly decorated, which was found to contain an immense wealth of gold and silver vessels (H. I., b. v., chs. iii., xii). The boundless munificence with which pious Christians have sought to beautify their places of worship needs no description. Along with the more formal consecration given to such sanctuaries of the Most High by special rites, they have sought to render them more worthy of his habitation by the liberality displayed in their erection and embellishment.