Where is the Hindu law/instruction of Cremation?
Upvote:5
Hinduism(Sanathana Dharma) is mainly a culture than a religion which is followed in India. The culture of one region is based on that region's weather conditions and nature. . Cremation of bodies is a real example of this fact. Soil in India is wet type and have more water in it. If dead bodies are buried under soil, the bio degradation take place and body fluids come out. Since the soil is wet enough, it is very much sure that those fluids will mix up with the water in soil and hence the drinking sources like wells and rivers will get polluted. This will lead to diseases.
Also cremation helps in not wasting the land. After cremating the bodies, there is practice in which some grains or rice seeds are put in the place of cremation(It is still followed in Southern part of India, not sure about other parts). This practice is a straightforward way in pointing out the importance of agriculture in Hinduism. This is practiced to make sure that the agricultural land is not wasted. The same land is again used for agricultural purposes. So in this culture there are no cemeteries, the same land again used for the farming.
All these are written in the Smrithies(example for Smriti is Manusmrithi and I don't know in which specific smrithi this practice is mentioned.), which contains the code of conducts to be followed by people following a culture. Each Smrithi is followed in a region for a particular period according to it's nature and weather conditions.. Smrithies are allowed to edit accordingly whenever needed.(This is a vast subject to discuss and out of scope of this question) If some 1000 years old books are saying that, you should follow some rule which were followed 1000 years ago, nobody is going to obey that rule. So the rituals and habits to be followed can be changed according to Hindu culture.
Also it will be helpful for you to refer to 16 samskaras to be followed in one person's life. From wikipedia: The samskΔra (sanskaar) are a series of sacraments, sacrifices and rituals that serve as rites of passage and mark the various stages of the human life and to signify entry to a particular Ashrama (i.e. stage of life). The answer of the question is the 16th one, Antyeshti. see the link.
So according to Hindu culture, particular region or country can adopt their way of burying according to the nature and weather conditions. This is making a good sense. Suppose if in European countries, dead bodies are about to burn, people will have difficulty in following that, so they choose burying body in soil which is easy to follow. Also in Middle East countries most of the parts are deserts. So burning of body is not necessary in these areas according to the soil type and nature conditions. This is just an introduction, the real answer needs a good research on Smrities mentioned earlier.
(And as I am from south India, Kerala, here most of the Hindus prefer to cremate the body than bury in the soil.)
More post
- π In Civil War Reenactments why do people walk across the battlefield
- π Has this newspaper printed the wrong picture (as well as a baffling caption)?
- π Why were Catholic priests prohibited from participating in ordeals but allowed to participate in inquisitions?
- π Is there any instance of part of a country successfully seceding and then unifying with a neighbouring country in the last century?
- π What was the extent of Kohl's government opposition to the independence of Ukraine?
- π Did the USA win the counter insurgency war in the Vietnam war?
- π What education path had to be followed to study law in 17th century Europe?
- π Were there any pilots that declined to carry out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- π What is the story of war that started with "if"?
- π Why did United Kingdom not keep the colonies after Napoleon's defeat?
- π Were the 19th century decades referred to as 40s, 50s back then?
- π What was housing like in early Medieval Scotland?
- π What degree of choice did slaves have over their sexual autonomy?
- π The original Lord Haw Haw's life in exile (Ireland)
- π Why did Italy's Battle for Births fail?
- π What happened to dead WWI soldiers whose faith believed in cremation?
- π Why did former Yugoslav republics dispute the legal successor of Yugoslavia?
- π Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- π When did hunting from trains stop?
- π Has anyone ever named a war after their own country or faction?
- π What is a "Johnsonian world of clubs and coffee houses" in the context of 18th century England?
- π What were the responses to Copernicus' heliocentric theory?
- π Can anyone identify this warship?
- π What is the reason of Mongol Empire success conquering that huge territory?
- π Why haven't bankers gained as much power in China as the Medici got in Europe during their height?
- π What did the smaller values from the "Percentages Agreement" actually mean?
- π Tarim Mummies origins and theories separating fact from fiction
- π World War 1 Indian propaganda posters
- π How did ruffs become fashionable and then went out of fashion?
- π Why did the ancient Romans use groups of eight?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- π Where is the Hindu law/instruction of Cremation?
- π Where is the bloodiest square mile on Earth?
- π Where did the Romans store their cash?
- π Where did Hitler get the funds to invest in economic development programs such as the autobahn when the German economy was in a depression?
- π Where did Asian Americans go to school during the 'separate but equal' era?
- π Where did the Gaels originate?
- π Where would the first nuke have been dropped in Germany?
- π Did the Romans leave any technical instruction manuals behind?
- π Where did the βvikings wear helmets with hornβ stereotype come from and why?
- π Where does the name 'D-Day' come from?
- π Where does the name of the country "Belarus" come from?
- π Where did Hannibal cross the Pyrenees?
- π Where did the archived discussions in Google Groups come from?
- π Why was the northern boundary of the Mongol empire set where it was?
- π How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- π When and where were the first coins made showing the currency or a face value?
- π Where are the Native American primary source documents?
- π Where does Lincoln say the South wants us to believe as they believe?
- π Why did the island of Bali remain Hindu when most of the rest of Indonesia converted to Islam?
- π Where did the term "Middle Ages" come from?
- π How were servants to the Kaiser of Imperial Germany treated and where may I find more information on them?
- π Where were the western legions when the Roman empire fell?
- π Where did Roman senators mostly live in the time of Tiberius or Caligula?
- π After the fall of the Roman Empire, where did their armor go? Was it used by any dark ages forces?
- π Where was the furthest extent of Arabian trade explorations?
- π Where did John Adams write of the night he shared a bed and an argument with Benjamin Franklin? Did Franklin write of it as well?
- π Where was Carl Sagan working on a plan to detonate a nuke on the Moon? Where was he applying when he leaked it?
- π Where and how did the concept of "incorporation" originate?
- π Why did the states that were born out of the Louisiana purchase adopt a common law system, and not a civil law system?
- π Where was the dateline before the concept of the International Dateline?
