• Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a human corpse ...

    From David P.@21:1/5 to All on Thu Oct 7 10:48:55 2021
    Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a human corpse
    is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to
    the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, esp.
    carrion birds. It's a specific type of the general practice
    of excarnation. It's practiced in the Chinese provinces &
    autonomous regions of Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan & Inner
    Mongolia, as well as in Mongolia, Bhutan & parts of India
    such as Sikkim & Zanskar. The locations of preparation & sky
    burial are understood in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions
    as charnel grounds. Comparable practices are part of
    Zoroastrian burial practices where deceased are exposed to
    the elements & birds of prey on stone structures called
    Dakhma. Few such places remain operational today due to
    religious marginalisation, urbanisation & the decimation
    of vulture populations.

    The majority of Tibetan people & many Mongols adhere to
    Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of
    spirits. There's no need to preserve the body, as it is now
    an empty vessel. Birds may eat it or nature may cause it
    to decompose. The function of the sky burial is simply to
    dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible.
    In much of Tibet & Qinghai, the ground is too hard & rocky
    to dig a grave, & due to the scarcity of fuel & timber, sky
    burials were typically more practical than the traditional
    Buddhist practice of cremation. In the past, cremation was
    limited to high lamas & some other dignitaries, but modern
    technology & difficulties with sky burial have led to an
    increased use of cremation by commoners.

    Other nations which performed air burial were the Caucasus
    nations of Georgians, Abkhazians & Adyghe people, in which
    they put the corpse in a hollow tree trunk.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

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