Sky burial or ritual
dissectionDissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the functions and relationships of its components...
was once a common
funeraryA funeral is a ceremony marking a person's death. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. These customs vary widely between cultures, and...
practice in
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north of the Himalayas. It is home to the indigenous Tibetan people, and to some other ethnic groups such as Monpas and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average...
wherein a human corpse is cut in specific locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements or the
mahabhutaMahābhūta is Sanskrit and Pāli for "great element." In Hinduism, the five "great" or "gross" elements are ether, air, fire, water and earth. In Buddhism, the "four great elements" are earth, water, fire and air....
and animals – especially to birds of prey. In Tibet the practice is known as
jhator , which literally means, "giving
almsAlms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...
to the birds."
The majority of Tibetans adhere to
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
, which teaches
rebirthRebirth in Buddhism is the doctrine that the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness of a person, upon the death or dissolution of the aggregates , becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new group of skandhas...
. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it, or nature may let it decompose. So the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the remains. In much of Tibet the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and with fuel and timber scarce, a sky burial is often more practical than cremation.
History and development
The Tibetan sky-burial practices appear to have evolved out of practical considerations: a) most of Tibet is above the tree line, and the scarcity of timber makes cremation economically unfeasible; b) subsurface interment is equally difficult since the
active layerIn environments containing permafrost, the active layer is the top layer of soil that thaws during the summer and freezes again during the autumn. In all climates, whether they contain permafrost or not, the temperature in the lower levels of the soil will remain more stable than that at the...
is not more than a few centimeters deep, with solid rock or permafrost beneath it. The customs are first recorded in an indigenous 12th century Buddhist treatise known colloquially as the
Book of the Dead (
Bardo ThodolThe Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State , sometimes translated as Liberation Through Hearing or Bardo Thodol is a funerary text...
). Tibetan
tantricismTantra , or tantram is a religious philosophy according to which Shakti is usually the main deity worshipped, and the universe is regarded as the divine play of Shakti and Shiva...
appears to have influenced the procedure. Dissection occurs according to instructions given by a lama or tantric adept.
Purpose and meaning
"Sky burial and open cremation may initially appear grotesque for Westerners, especially if they have not reflected on their own burial practice of embalming. For Tibetan Buddhists, sky burial and cremation are templates of instructional teaching on the impermanence of life."
As the name implies,
jhator is considered an act of generosity: the deceased and his/her surviving relatives are providing food to sustain living beings. Generosity and
compassionKaruā is generally translated as "compassion" or "pity". It is part of the spiritual path of both Buddhism and Jainism.-Buddhism:...
for all beings are important virtues or
paramitaThe term Pāramitā or Pāramī means "Perfect" or "Perfection". In Buddhism, the Paramitas refer to the perfection or culmination of certain virtues...
in
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
.
Although some observers have suggested that
jhator is also meant to unite the deceased person with the sky or sacred realm, this does not seem consistent with most of the knowledgeable commentary and eyewitness reports, which indicate that Tibetans believe that at this point life has completely left the body and the body contains nothing more than simple flesh.
The government of the
People's Republic of ChinaThe People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population...
, which has controlled Tibet since 1950, prohibited the practice (which it considered barbaric) in the 1960s but started to allow it again in the 1980s. Non-Tibetans are usually not permitted to observe it, and direct photography is considered unethical, offensive and is generally forbidden.
A
jhator was filmed, with permission from the family, for
Frederique DarragonFrederique Darragon is a French explorer known for her documentary film The Secret Towers of the Himalayas, which chronicled her expedition to the mystifying stone towers of Sichuan and Tibet. She wrote a book also titled The Secret Towers of the Himalayas. She is founder and president of the...
's documentary
Secret Towers of the Himalayas, which aired on the Science Channel in Fall 2008. The camera work was deliberately careful to never show the body itself, while documenting the procedure, birds, and tools.
Vajrayana iconography
The tradition and custom of the
jhator afforded
Traditional Tibetan medicineTibetan medicine is a centuries-old traditional medical system that employs a complex approach to diagnosis, incorporating techniques such as pulse analysis and urinalysis, and utilizes behavior and dietary modification, medicines composed of natural materials and physical therapies Tibetan...
and
thangkaA "Thangka," also known as "Tangka", "Thanka" or "Tanka" is a painted or embroidered Buddhist banner which was hung in a monastery or a family altar and occasionally carried by monks in ceremonial processions...
iconographyIconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek εἰκών "image" and γράφειν "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons...
with a particular insight into the interior workings of the human body. Pieces of the
human skeletonThe human skeleton consists of both fused and individual bones supported and supplemented by ligaments, tendons, muscles and cartilage. It serves as a scaffold which supports organs, anchors muscles, and protects organs such as the brain, lungs and heart....
were employed in ritual tools such as the
skullcupA kapala or skullcup is a cup made from a human skull used as a ritual implement in both Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra...
,
thigh-bone trumpetKangling is the Tibetan word for a trumpet or horn made out of a human thighbone. In Tantric Chöd practice the practitioner, motivated by compassion, plays the kangling to summon hungry spirits and demons so that s/he may satisfy their hunger and thereby relieve their sufferings. It is also...
, etc.
The 'symbolic bone ornaments' (Skt: ; Tib: rus pa'i rgyanl phyag rgya) are also known as "
mudraA mudrā is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism. While some mudrās involve the entire body, most are performed with the hands and fingers...
" or 'seals'. The
Hevajra Tantra identifies the Symbolic Bone Ornaments with the
Five WisdomsThe Five Wisdoms is an upāya or 'skillful means' doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism...
and
Jamgon KongtrulJamgon Kongtrul was a prominent Tibetan Buddhist teacher and is also the name shared by members of a lineage held by tradition to be his subsequent reincarnations ....
in his commentary to the
Hevajra Tantra explains this further.
Setting
A traditional
jhator is performed in specified locations in
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north of the Himalayas. It is home to the indigenous Tibetan people, and to some other ethnic groups such as Monpas and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average...
(and surrounding areas traditionally occupied by Tibetans).
Drigung MonasteryDrigung Monastery is a notable monastery in the Lhasa Prefecture, Tibet, known for performing sky burials.The monastery ) is named after its location in a valley about 150 km east from Lhasa, in Drigung district, and is the mother monastery of...
is one of the three most important
jhator sites.
The procedure takes place on a large flat rock long used for the purpose. The charnel ground (
durtro) is always higher than its surroundings. It may be very simple, consisting only of the flat rock, or it may be more elaborate, incorporating temples and
stupaA stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, once thought to be places of Buddhist worship, typically the remains of a Buddha or saint...
(
chorten in Tibetan).
Relatives may remain nearby during the
jhator, possibly in a place where they cannot see it directly. The
jhator usually takes place at dawn.
The full
jhator procedure (as described below) is elaborate and expensive. Those who cannot afford it simply place their deceased on a high rock where the body decomposes or is eaten by birds and animals.
Procedure
Accounts from observers vary. The following description is assembled from multiple accounts by observers from the U.S. and Europe. References appear at the end.
Participants
Prior to the procedure, monks may chant
mantraFor secular and business interpretation, see Motto.A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation"...
around the body and burn juniper
incenseIncense is composed of aromatic biotic materials, which release fragrant smoke when burned. The term incense refers to the substance itself, rather than to the odor that it produces....
– although ceremonial activities often take place on the preceding day.
The work of disassembling of the body may be done by a monk, or, more commonly, by
rogyapas ("body-breakers").
All the eyewitness accounts remarked on the fact that the
rogyapas did not perform their task with gravity or ceremony, but rather talked and laughed as during any other type of physical labor. According to Buddhist teaching, this makes it easier for the soul of the deceased to move on from the uncertain plane between life and death onto the next life.
Disassembling the body
In one account, the leading
rogyapa cut off the limbs and hacked the body to pieces, handing each part to his assistants, who used rocks to pound the flesh and bones together to a pulp, which they mixed with
tsampaTsampa is a Tibetan staple foodstuff, particularly prominent in the central part of the country. It is roasted flour, usually barley flour and sometimes also wheat flour or rice flour...
(barley flour with tea and
yakThe yak is a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia. In addition to a large domestic population, there is a small, vulnerable wild yak population. In Tibetan, the word gyag refers only to the male of the...
butter or milk) before the vultures were summoned to eat.
In several accounts, the flesh was stripped from the bones and given to vultures without further preparation; the bones then were broken up with sledgehammers, and usually mixed with
tsampa before being given to the vultures. Many rogyapa first feed the bones and cartilage to the vultures, keeping the best flesh until last. After having had their fill of good quality meat, the birds usually fly away - leaving the bones and less favored bits.
In another account, vultures were given the whole body. When only the bones remained, they were broken up with mallets, ground with tsampa, and given to crows and hawks that had waited until the vultures had departed.
Sometimes the internal organs were removed and processed separately, but they too were consumed by birds. The hair is removed from the head and may be simply thrown away; at Drigung it seems at least some hair is kept in a room of the monastery.
None of the eyewitness accounts specifies what kind of knife is used in the
jhator. One source states that it is a "ritual flaying knife" or
trigu (Sanskrit
kartikaA kartika is a small, symbolic crescent knife or 'chopper', used in Vajrayana Buddhist ceremony. It symbolizes the severance of all material and worldly bonds and is crowned with a vajra, which is said to destroy ignorance, and leads to enlightenment. The kartika is a key ritual implement in the...
), but another source expresses skepticism, noting that the
trigu is considered a woman's tool (
rogyapas seem to be exclusively male).
Vultures
The species of vulture involved is apparently the "
Eurasian GriffonThe Griffon Vulture or Eurasian Griffon Vulture is a large Old World vulture in the bird of prey family Accipitridae....
" or "
Old World vultureOld World vultures belong to the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, buzzards, kites, and hawks.Old World vultures are not closely related to the superficially similar New World vultures and condors, and do not share that group's good sense of smell. The similarities between the two...
," Order
FalconiformesThe order Falconiformes is a group of about 290 species of birds that comprises the diurnal birds of prey. Raptor classification is difficult and the order is treated in several ways.- Classification problems :...
, Family
AccipitridaeThe Accipitridae is one of the two major families within the order Accipitriformes . Many well-known birds, such as hawks, eagles, kites, harriers and Old World vultures are included in this group...
, scientific name
Gyps fulvus.
In places where there are several
jhator offerings each day, the birds sometimes had to be coaxed to eat, which in one case was accomplished by a ritual dance. It is considered a bad omen if the vultures will not eat, or if even a small portion of the body is left after the birds fly away.
In places where fewer bodies are processed, the vultures were more eager and sometimes had to be fended off with sticks during the initial preparations.
Further reading
Photos:
Eyewitness accounts: