I’m not altogether sure what I was expecting – but it wasn’t the reality I got. As we entered the Pashupati Temple, I smelled the smoke. I made it to the bridge leading over the river to the largest parts of the Hindu temple sprawling over the hillside banks beyond, looked to my right and saw the bodies burning. It hit me that the smoke drifting toward me was human remains and the smell in my nose was burned people – and I ran across that bridge.
I knew that this temple was where they cremated bodies. I somehow thought we would be further from it and that perhaps it would be done in a somewhat more controlled way with an actual crematorium of some kind. But it was just bodies on slabs along the river, with wood – lit into pyres. The smoke billowed up and blew in the wind. My reaction was visceral – I was disgusted.
At first I thought that on the other side of the river, the smoke wouldn’t reach me. Then I realized everywhere was covered in it. Meanwhile, shamans sat at different parts of the temple – just lazing and watching. Monkeys ran around playing. Tourists went about viewing and touring. Emily took photos.
I stood in shock and could only think that there is a reason the Torah forbids cremation. I didn’t want to breathe people’s charred remains. I didn’t want to be covered in them. I needed to leave.
After we left, I had a sense of shock and to be honest, I don’t really know what happened except that I felt the smoke of human remains was the foulest thing one could have on them. I wanted two things – a shower and to have everything we were wearing washed ASAP.
In other ways, I understood the uniqueness and value of the temple and the rituals there. Pashupati is the one of the largest Hindu temples in the world. In and of itself, it’s gorgeous. Its place along the river is beautiful. The mixture of people offering up earnest prayer, mourning, and people living in its midst is fascinating.
I can appreciate the way families sit with the bodies of their loved ones, tending the fire for hours until their loved ones’ bodies are no more. It is not only their last act of love, but a horrible, and altogether sobering way to comprehend the finality of the loss. In Judaism and other Western religions, we toss dirt on the casket to help drive home the loss. But to sit and watch a body burn slowly…that is true finality.
Emily and I discussed our feelings and perceptions at length. She feels that the ash and smoke are just ash and smoke. She asked me why I don’t freak out at a barbecue when the smoke of animal flesh is spewing off the fire. Why isn’t the ash of chicken remains sickening to me?
It’s a good question.
My only answer is that a chicken isn’t a human. I don’t cry at the death of a chicken. I wouldn’t give my life for that of a chicken I love. I eat chicken for that matter. There is something innately more valuable to me in the life of a person. To have a person’s burnt flesh entering my nose and lungs is something I can’t handle.
I realize that in some circles, all of this makes me less cool. So many Indiaphiles sing the praises of Varanasi – the town in Northern India where the sick and dying go as it is considered the holiest place for a Hindu die. There, people are cremated around the clock – their remains dumped into the Ganges.
Something about Varanasi is supposed to be amazing. People go out on boats to look at the cremation and piles of bodies from the water. To many, Varanasi is spiritual and gives an important glimpse into life and more importantly, how we deal with death.
I’m just not that guy.
Maybe it’s my upbringing. Maybe it’s something inborn. I’m fine with death – it’s part of the cycle. I don’t fear it and it doesn’t disgust me. I believe in the process of mourning which is a family and communal one. I believe in treating a body with respect and seeing it buried with dignity as per Jewish law and tradition.
I’ve never judged anyone for doing anything different. I have no real opinion on cremation – and I’ve never given it much thought. Only now know that it’s something I never want to be around.
In America, cremation is something very sanitized from which people are removed. A body is sent to an incinerator and returned in an urn. Instead of cremation being a process, it’s a product.
I’ll give the Nepali and Indian Hindus one thing – they make cremation a vital and significant part of the mourning process. They make it real – fire, smoke and ash. They watch their dead dissolve in flames. This real, rough, textured approach to cremation is what Emily loves about Pashupati and the Hindu approach to cremation.
Just outside the temple, I noticed one other either ironic or horrible thing – the public old age home sits right next to the part of temple with the cremation slabs. I would guess that there – the poorest of the elderly know for whom the fire is stoked….
Like with so many issues of tradition and spirituality, there is nothing to judge and nothing I can definitively conclude except where I stand in the sea of human beliefs. Moments like these can take one by surprise. Sometimes, you aren’t fully aware of what you are until you see what you’re not.
At the end of the day, when the shock, horror, showers, and reflection was done, two things stood out to me: I like and believe in the Jewish traditions surrounding death and what people say about this part of the world shocking you and making you grow is true. Region 2 has then power to bat you around and make you question everything – including the things you didn’t even have questions about.
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