Death and mourning

Antyesti, ‘last sacrifice’, is the final samskara. The body is washed, dressed – often in white, or red for a married woman – and carried to the cremation ground, ideally within a day. The chief mourner, usually the eldest son, circles the pyre and lights it. The ashes are later immersed in a sacred river, above all the Ganges at Varanasi or Haridwar. For about ten to thirteen days the family observes mourning and offers rice balls (pinda) to help the departed spirit join the ancestors. Ancestors are honoured afterwards in shraddha rites, especially during the fortnight of Pitru Paksha. Young children and renunciants are often buried instead.

Buddhist funerals reflect the teaching of impermanence and the hope of a good rebirth or liberation. In Theravada countries, monks chant verses on impermanence and receive gifts, and the merit of this generosity is dedicated to the deceased; cremation usually follows, with further offerings on the seventh and hundredth days. Many Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhists believe consciousness passes through an intermediate state (bardo) lasting up to forty-nine days, during which texts such as the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead may be read. In Japan, the dead receive a posthumous Buddhist name, and after cremation relatives lift the bones into an urn with chopsticks.

Sikhs see death as the soul’s return to God, accepted as part of the divine will (hukam), so loud lamentation is discouraged. The body is washed, dressed with the Five Ks if the person was initiated, and cremated, while mourners repeat Waheguru and recite the evening prayer Kirtan Sohila. The ashes are placed in running water rather than kept beneath a monument. At home or in the gurdwara, the family usually begins a complete reading of the Guru Granth Sahib (Sahaj Path), finished over about ten days and concluded with a Bhog ceremony, the Ardas and the sharing of karah prashad.

Because Zoroastrians regard a corpse as polluting and earth and fire as sacred, the dead were traditionally neither buried nor cremated but laid in a dakhma, or ‘tower of silence’, where sun and birds consumed the body. Beforehand, a dog is brought to look at the corpse (sagdid), and a lamp or fire burns nearby as priests pray. The soul is believed to stay close for three days and at dawn on the fourth to cross the Chinvat Bridge to judgement; the Uthamna ceremony on the third day and prayers on the fourth support it. Today many Zoroastrians, especially in Iran and abroad, choose burial or cremation instead.

Jewish tradition calls for burial as soon as possible, often within a day. Members of a burial society (chevra kadisha) wash the body in the tahara ritual and dress it in a plain white shroud, and a simple coffin stresses that all are equal in death. Mourners tear a garment or wear a torn ribbon (keriah). After the funeral, the family ‘sits shiva’ at home for seven days, receiving visitors while the community provides meals. The mourner’s kaddish, a prayer praising God, is recited for eleven months for a parent, and each anniversary (yahrzeit) is marked by lighting a candle that burns for a whole day.

Christian funerals commend the dead to God and proclaim the hope of resurrection through Christ. Catholics may celebrate a Requiem Mass and pray for the souls of the departed, especially on All Souls’ Day, 2 November. At Orthodox funerals the coffin is usually open, mourners give a last kiss, and memorial services follow on the third, ninth and fortieth days, often with a dish of boiled wheat (kolyva). Protestant services typically centre on scripture, hymns and thanksgiving for the person’s life. Burial was long the norm, but cremation is now widely accepted, including by the Catholic Church since 1963.

When a Muslim dies, the eyes are closed and the body is washed (ghusl), usually by relatives of the same sex, then wrapped in plain white cloth (kafan). The funeral prayer, salat al-janazah, is said standing, without bowing or prostration, often at a mosque. Burial follows quickly, ideally within a day, with the body laid on its right side facing Mecca; cremation is not permitted. Mourning generally lasts three days, though a widow observes a waiting period (iddah) of four months and ten days. Relatives pray for the deceased, give charity in their name and visit the grave.

Bahá’í law asks that the body, honoured as the former temple of the soul, be buried rather than cremated, and not carried more than an hour’s journey from the place of death. It is washed and wrapped in silk or cotton, and on an adult’s finger is placed a ring inscribed with a verse beginning ‘I came forth from God, and return unto Him’. Before burial, the Prayer for the Dead – the only Bahá’í obligatory prayer said in congregation – is read by one person while all present stand. Otherwise funerals are simple and free of set ritual, and death is seen as the soul’s birth into a new world.

Confucian funeral rites express filial piety (xiao), the devotion owed to parents in death as in life. Classical texts set out five grades of mourning dress, from coarse unhemmed hemp for the closest relatives to finer cloth for more distant kin, so that a family’s structure was made visible in grief. For a parent, mourning ideally lasted three years – in practice about twenty-five months – during which officials might withdraw from public life. A wooden ancestral tablet was installed in the home or clan hall to receive offerings, and the dead are still remembered at the spring tomb-sweeping festival of Qingming.

Ancient Egyptians believed the dead could live on if the body was preserved and properly provided for. For wealthier burials, embalming took about seventy days: internal organs were removed and placed in jars, and the body was dried with natron and wrapped in linen. At the tomb, priests performed the ‘Opening of the Mouth’, restoring the senses so that the deceased could eat, speak and breathe. Spells from the Book of the Dead guided the soul to judgement before Osiris, where the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat, truth and order. Families brought offerings to sustain the ka, the life force.

For the Yoruba, a person who dies in old age after a full life is not only mourned but celebrated, with funeral festivities that may last several days, including drumming, praise poetry and feasting; an untimely death, by contrast, brings deep grief. Traditionally, the dead were buried within the family compound, keeping them close to their descendants. Ancestors remain part of the family, guiding and protecting it and receiving prayers and offerings. At annual festivals they return in the form of Egúngún, masqueraders in layered cloth whose appearance renews the bond between the living and the dead.