An Indian Study of Love and Death/Some Hindu Rites for the Honoured Dead
Some Hindu Rites for the Honoured
Dead
Some Hindu Rites for the Honoured
Dead
The moment of sunset or dawn for the flight of souls. Sunset or dawn, and the turn of the tide. But darkness, and the silence of night, and the sound of water lapping against the shore, for the builded pile, and the flames of the death-fire!
In that Indian house where the coming of death is waited, the distant children are all-called home; and even wedded daughters watch, side by side with the older women, and with their brothers’ wives, for the final change. To some few, death comes with a merciful swiftness. In work, or at play, alone or amongst friends, he plucks them by the sleeve, or touches them on the shoulder, and they look into his face, and, smiling, die. It is very great, say the wise, to laugh and die! But for most of us, there are long preliminary hours of disentanglement. It seems as if the doorways of the senses had been closed, that the spirit might retreat to the inner solitude. And the man lies there, wrapt in that generalised subconscious thought that made the music of his lifetime, his body remaining passive and inert.
In that hour knows he the whole, but not the particular. He is like a traveller making ready to cross the threshold. Time wears on, till at last one of the mysterious rhythms is complete. Midnight or noon, sunset or dawn, draws near; and the fateful change is seen. The breathing grows hard, and the shadow falls. With gentle haste, the pallet is lifted and borne to a cleansed and consecrated spot in the verandah or open court—for it is thought cruel to the soul, that death should take place beneath a roof—and then, all but the dying man’s nearest and dearest having withdrawn from his presence, the voice of his eldest son, or maybe a younger brother, rises alone, throwing wide the gates of the earth-life, and calling upon those of eternity to open, to the knocking of that pilgrim who stands, feet shod and staff in hand, before them.
Verily, blessed is he in whose last moments is heard no sound save the age-old Benediction of the Passing Soul:—
“Om! Gunga! Narayan!
Om! Gunga! Narayan! Brahman!”
A moment goes by, until, as the first of the unmistakable signs of death makes its appearance, the long wild wail of the watching women breaks forth, unrestrained and unrestrainable, and the hours of mourning begin. But some, whose distant kinship calls only for tenderness and respect, busy themselves silently to bring incense and flowers and Ganges water, that the memory of this death-hour may ever be associated in the minds of the living with thoughts of sanctity and worship. Thus, with perhaps a burning light or two, does the dead lie, in simple state, awaiting the coming of the heaters who will take him to the burning-ghât. And now and again, as one or another steals a look at the quiet face, the breath is sharply indrawn, to see the vexed record of the personal life erased, and the tortured lines smoothed out, while death establishes his throne securely, and writes, to end all things, his signature of peace. Now becomes plain the innermost secret, between himself and God, of this man’s soul. Now weariness leaves him, and his main purpose, self-recorded on lips and brow, shines forth before us. Or we catch an ancestral likeness, or a broad humanity, hitherto unsuspected, even as we see the contour of some receding landscape, generalised and softened.
The women hush their sobs, and bow their heads under their white veils, crowding together, in drooping submission, in some far corner, as the bearers of the dead come in—kinsmen, or neighbours, or even hirelings, as it may be—to carry him forth, feet foremost, from the home he will never enter more. And ere they return, there must be made ready against their coming, fire in an earthen pot, and leaves of the neem or bitter olive. Only after touching these, may those who have served the dead re-enter their home. But all day long, thereafter, will the cup of half-burnt cinders stand in the lane beside the door-sill, as a sign to every passer-by that here to-day has death been and gone.
It has become the custom in modern times, when august leaders of the civic life are gathered to their rest, that processions of their townsmen should follow the funeral bier, with hymns and the recitation of prayers. The procession halts, moreover, at those doors with which the dead man was most familiar—his place of worship, or work, or assembly, as it may be—and services of prayer and farewell are held over him there. Those waiting at the burning-ghât to offer the last rites, can judge by the nearing sound of the singing how long or how short will be the time before the mourners—bareheaded, barefooted, and clad in white—arrive. But in the whole of Hindu music, there is neither death-croon, nor dirge, nor sad eternal lullaby. The chanting here is all of prayers, and psalms, and hymns. To Hindu thinking, there is in fact no death, and as simple folk are carried to the burning-ghât the bearers cry only by the road, “Nama Rama sattya hai!” (The name of the Lord alone is real!), or “Hari bol! Hari bol!” (Call on the Lord!), or “Harer Nama kebolom!” (Only the name of the Lord availeth!). One great measure of experience is finished. The personal, for the nonce, has found release into the Impersonal. Life has been resumed into the Ocean of Life. Our vision henceforth of the beloved dead must be subjective alone. But there is nothing here that is fatal or eternal. “Of that which is born, death is certain. Of that which is dead, birth is certain.” “The body comes and goes.” “Never is the embodied soul destroyed.”
Many are the ceremonies to be performed at the burning-ghât. Amongst other things is the offering of the Viaticum, which, with Hindus, is given after death. A similar act of ministration will be repeated every time a requiem is performed for this man’s soul; and the sight of the sacramental food will carry the mind back swiftly to the heart-piercing grief of these moments, before the funeral-pyre; so that prayers for the repose and benediction of the spirit may be uttered in all that concentration and exaltation possible only to great sorrow. Yet even now, before this pinda, as it is called, can be given to the dead, one is first set apart and offered for the whole world, as it were, of departed souls, “on behalf of those who have none to offer the pinda for them.”
In this giving of the Viaticum after death, and its re-consecration at every shraddh,[1] the Hindu doctrine is implicit that no act by itself is of saving efficacy, that no rite or ceremony is more than symbolistic, and that all alike is to be determined and valued by its effect upon the mind. In concentration alone can we behold the truth. All that aids in the attainment of concentration is to be welcomed and practised.
One by one, at the burning-ghât, each who is present stands, to take leave of him, before the dead. In his heart, then, he calls him by his name, and silently asks his pardon for all wherein, consciously or unconsciously, he has offended him, and here it may be the priest intones the solemn farewell, “Thy friends have turned their faces away from thee, and thou art alone with thy good deeds.”
The first brand is lighted and given to the eldest son, who goes round the pyre seven times, and then touches the lips of his father with fire, signifying the resuming into the soul of that energy heretofore made manifest in citizenship. And now is lighted the funeral fire, as the last act of personal service to be rendered by children to their dead father. As this blazes up, amidst the silence of the kinsmen, the ministering priest will recite the Vedic prayer:—
“Om!
Take Thou this man from amongst us, O Agni![2]
By the pathway of blessed souls,
And enable him to reap the harvest of his deeds!
To Thee, O Effulgent! is known the past of all!
Cut off from this man all his transgressions!
To Thee, O Agni! our salutation.
Om!”
“Om!
Now has this Mortality been merged in Immortality,
This finite soul become one with the Infinite Being.
The body of this man is here reduced to ashes!
Now, O mind! is the time
For thee to remember thy former deeds!”[3]
This is several times repeated, before water is brought from the river in an earthen pot to quench the dying embers. The ashes are collected and scattered on the stream. And, last of all, on the spot where the fire has been extinguished, the pot is taken, now emptied of its water. A single blow is given; and it lies, there in the burning-ghât, broken into a thousand fragments.
Human hearts and the energy of sorrow must have their way. To them a time of stern abstinence, of going barefooted, and sleeping on straw, may be devoted. But wildness and bitterness of grief is waywardness at bottom. Sooner or later, sorrow must be accepted, and the duties of life resumed.
Gently and firmly, then, does the Mother-Church deal with her children, bidding them face the world before them in a spirit of peace. Only a widow is not asked to end her weeping. To her, it is well understood, her mourning is for life. But even the daughters of the dead must go back, if they are married, to their husbands’ homes. To these, three days of austerity are all that can be allowed. When this is ended, they bathe and worship. Then they make ready food for the poor, and distribute alms. Thus striving to make their loss the beginning of a new life—of deeper consecration and saddened memory, it may be, but of all the old serenity and calm—they must set forth to join the wedded kindred.
For those left behind, the remaining period of mourning is longer or shorter, according to the degree of the bereavement. It is expected, however, that self-control and the setting aside of “the grief that rises from illusion” will come soonest to those who are most saintly and scholarly. Hence amongst Brahmins, the severest mourning lasts for ten days only.
Then is held a service which involves the communal recognition of the new head of the family. But before the household can be made ready for this, its re-entrance into the civic life, there must be a formal end to the days of sorrow. Each soul must be led to step forth from the darkness of its grief. It must be soothed, purified, and reconciled to the world and to its own part in it. Such, at least, must have been the thought that led to the composing of one of the deepest and most significant benedictions in all the ancient liturgies of the world—the Hindu Prayer for the Re-sanctification of Labour after Mourning.
Says the priest:—
“When we consider that which is past,
And that which is about to come hereafter,
We see that mortals come to a ripe end,
Like the harvests of the field;
And like the harvests of the field
They are born again once more.”
And then, slowly and meditatively:—
“Om!
The winds are showering blessedness on us.
The very oceans give forth blessedness.
May our herbs and crops bring blessedness to us!
Sweet unto us be the nights and dawns!
May the dust of the earth be charged with blessing!
May the Heaven-Father cover us with benediction!
Full of blessing be the great trees,
And full of blessedness the sun!
May our herds of cattle be sanctified to us!”
Thus, on each of its children, wearied of sadness, does the Eternal Faith put forth the soothing hand of its own great wisdom and love. Indulging in no perversity of isolation is the soul called to fare forth into the great world, and tread there, manfully, the allotted path. Yet memory is not forbidden. Tender prayer has its own place. Again and again, as the set moons and the seasons go round, will the household reassemble to hear the Vedic salutations and offer rites of aid to the departed soul.
Then may arise the voice of the eldest son calling upon the spirit of his dead father, in words drawn from the Rig-Veda, and perhaps repeated on like occasions through thousands of years:—
“Go thou, and be thou joined unto the company of our forefathers,
And meet thou also with the gods of yonder world!
Ascending into the furthest heights of heaven,
Do thou receive the fulfilment of thine heart’s desire!
Leaving behind thee all that has been blemished or imperfect,
Return thou whence thou camest forth,
And be united with thy shining self!
Be the gods in high heaven thy protectors!
On that path whither thou art gone before us,
Be the gods in high heaven thy protectors!
In those abodes where dwell the doers of good deeds
Mayst thou be set to dwell, by the Creator!
Like unto a traveller well-driven by his charioteer,
Who arriveth daily at more distant lands.
So mayst thou increase in steadfastness and glory!
He verily, who hath departed from this life,
Doth attain unto that other
From which death has been cast out.”
And again:—
“Go forth! go forth! by those same paths whereby have gone the men of old!
By those same paths whereby must go all that are born of woman, according to their deeds!
O spirit, that art departed afar off, to dwell amongst the gods of yonder world,
We call upon thee—Do thou again return, and abide with us!
Oh thou who hast withdrawn thyself from us, travelling by the luminous roadways of the light,
We call upon thee again—Return and abide with us!
O spirit, who art resumed into the limitless universe,
We call upon thee—Return and abide with us!
Soul that to-day art departed into uttermost space,
We call upon thee—Return and abide with us!
O spirit, who art now become one with the infinite past and the infinite future,
We call upon thee again, to return and abide with us!”
- ↑ The shrāddha, or requiem, is the periodic memorial of the dead, monthly or yearly, together with prayer and the distribution of charity.
- ↑ The devotional content of this name cannot be expressed as “O Fire!” “O God, who dost manifest Thyself here in the energy of fire!” might be accepted perhaps.
- ↑ This probably signifies, “Now is left to us memory alone.”