Finding Tibet – The Sky Burial
No one has ever seen the dead body of a vulture.
The sky burial might be one of the most fascinating and unique aspects of Tibetan culture. When I talk about the sky burial with people outside of Tibet, they often tell me, “that is to feed vultures with human meat right?” Most have an idea of what it is, but the learning of the specifics of this practice has enriched my Tibetan experience with an added veil of mysteriousness, as I had it on my mind to a point of obsession.
I want to see a sky burial!
I exclaimed in some innocent excitement as if this was something cool.
I was soon told by many that the sky burials are not open to observers anymore, and there is a story behind it. Back in the days when it was open to outsiders, there was a Japanese tourist who secretly taped the proceeding. The Tibetans found out that he was taping, and beat him to death. Ever since then, no one outside the burial troupe was ever allowed to see a sky burial.
How do I write about the sky burial with facts and objectively, it being quite horrifying to an outsider, and not to be sensational?
There is a theory behind it. There is a world view that is valid to the Tibetan people.
In Tibet I came closest to a sky burial when the tour bus passed by a sky burial site. The tour guide took note and told us about sky burials. I gathered the basics from the tour guide and for the rest of my trip I seized any opportunity to talk to people who knew something about this practice, and here’s a composite of the information that I gathered.
There are a few reasons why the Tibetans developed this idea of feeding corpses to vultures as a burial. The most religious comes from a story of one of the living Buddha’s, back in the ancient days, who cut off his arm to feed vultures. The Tibetans have always revered the vultures as the godly birds.
With centuries of observation, no one has ever seen the dead body of vultures. As it was told to me, it felt as if a half-folkloric, half scientific explanation was given, that when vultures are about to die they fly toward the sun. They fly higher and higher, and die. During their fall from the above, the atmosphere burns their bodies before they reach the ground. In that sense anything they ever eat is consumed by the atmosphere and is exhumed by nature.
Sure enough, other forms of burial are practiced in Tibet, including water burial and cremation, but with the Buddhist theories of death and nature on their minds the Tibetans have adopted the sky burial as the predominant way to bury loved ones who have left the present life. There are other pragmatic reasons, though. The Tibetans were originally nomads who were not tied to the land, as such land burial was not quite a natural choice for them. The geography of Tibet did not allow the convenience of other forms of burial either.
Needless to say, there are special procedures for the preparation of the body and other pre-burial formalities in the home of the dead. I will omit them for now, as they get a bit complicated.
On the day of the burial, the sky burial master (it’s a profession) bears the body in a large basket, the body crouched and well-prepared in a sitting posture, and starts out either from an intersection in the village or from the home of the deceased. Along with him go the friends and distant relatives of the dead. The close relatives never go to the sky burial site with the sky burial master, the reason being that they do not want the spirit to linger on to his or her past life with loved ones attending at the burial site. The sky burial master never turns his back, such that the spirit can go peacefully, by leaving behind all memories of the home so that it can be set free.
Once at the burial site, the body is placed onto the altar. A fire is set, turning up white smoke by the mulberry leafs, to call the vultures. The vultures have good eyes, and they can see the smoke from very far away. With centuries of practice this has become a customary signal to the vultures–they know that there is food to be had at the hill.
Just imagine the scene of vultures gathering, circling the sky at dawn, anxious for food, starved in their staunch stomachs. Sometimes, there are as many as a hundred of them. And not just vultures, but all kinds of other meat-loving birds, like crows.
The birds gather around the altar. They wait for the first take by the strongest and oldest leader in the pack. Only after the initiation by the leader will the rest follow.
The sky burial master cooperates. Three parts to the ceremony. Let the blood out from the neck. Cut up the body parts for easy digestion. Birds finish the meat and the bones. Then comes the intestines. The last one to be served is the head and the brain. Birds love the brain, and if they get to it in the first round they lose appetite for the rest of the body.
The theory is, the cleaner the body is eaten, the better it is for that person’s reincarnation. If the body was not finished, the family would have to hold additional ceremonies to help the soul get to the next better life. One can only hope for a clean burial, with cooperation by the birds.
The next day, the sky burial master goes back to the altar to pick up what remains for the final cremation.
The spirit has been freed.
Buried.
And no one has ever seen the dead body of a vulture.