Information about Sky Burial

This article is about a novel. For the burial practice, see Sky burial.

Sky Burial

Author	Xinran Xue
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Chatto and Windus
Publication date	1 July 2004
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	256 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0701176229

Sky Burial is a 2004 novel by Xinran Xue, her second. Xue is a British-Chinese journalist who writes for The Guardian. Sky Burial was listed in the Los Angeles Times as one of their favorite non-fiction books of 2005^[1].

Plot summary

In the 1950s, a Chinese woman goes searching for her missing husband who had been serving as a doctor in Tibet. She gradually comes to learn more about the Tibetans, including the custom of 'sky burial' practiced by some Tibetan nomads.

External links

• Review at Amazon
• Review at BBC Womans Hour
• Asian Review of Books
• Good Woman
• An Epic Love Story of Tibet

References

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Sky burial or ritual dissection was once a common practice in Tibet. A human corpse is cut into small pieces and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements and animals – especially to birds of prey. In Tibetan the practice is known as jhator (Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་; Wylie: bya gtor), which literally means, "giving alms to the birds."

The majority of Tibetans adhere to Buddhism, which teaches reincarnation. 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.

Additionally, since no fuel, land, or topsoil is consumed, this way of burial is arguably more ecologically friendly than cremation or interment.

Origin

Sky Burial may have originated with the ancient Iranian Aryans as it was practised in old Iran. The Zoroastrian Iranians believed in placing human remains in a Tower of Silence, so as not to corrupt the earth, water, or fire. Some of the Iranian peoples did not live in Iran, but remained steppe nomads. One of these was the Yuezhi who were defeated by the Huns about the third century BCE. They later picked up many civilized influences. Some of these people migrated toward Afghanistan and India after this defeat Kushans but others migrated into Tibet and may have introduced this custom there. The Kushan kings were once great promoters of the teachings of Buddha and adopted still other cultural ideas from the Greeks.

Purpose and meaning

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 compassion for all beings are important virtues in Buddhism. 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 is simply meat.

The government of the People's Republic of China, 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 not permitted to observe it, and photography is usually forbidden.

Setting

A traditional jhator is performed in specified locations in Tibet (and surrounding areas traditionally occupied by Tibetans). Drigung Monastery 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 stupa (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 prayers around the body and burn juniper incense – 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. This is consistent with reports that Tibetans see the body simply as a leftover to be dealt with appropriately.

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 tsampa (barley flour with tea and yak 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.

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 kartrika), 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 Griffon" or "Old World vulture," Order Falconiformes, Family Accipitridae, 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.

References

Eyewitness accounts:

1. Eyewitness account, Niema Ash, 1980s
2. Eyewitness account, New York Times, 1999
3. Eyewitness account, Pamela Logan, 1997
4. Eyewitness account, Mondo Secter, 1999 - This page also includes references and links to other eyewitness accounts and to a 1986 documentary film that shows a jhator
5. Description of Drigung site, Keith Dowman, orig. pub. 1988


See also
Entry on jhator in Dakini Yogini Central
all about Eurasian griffon vultures

See also

• Towers of Silence
• Sky Burial - a novel by Xinran Xue
• South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China, a memoir by Seth Faison

External links

• Tibetan Sky Burial
• Witness to a Tibetan Sky-Burial
• Sky Burial - Photos and Witness Account 2005
• Lonely Planet theme guides - Sky burial
• Tibet's Celestial Burial, a photography book by Walker Xue