One of my colleagues just came back from a trip to India and told me about a place called Manikarnika Ghat, also known as "The Great Cremation Ground."
According to Hindu mythology, being burned here provides an instant gateway to liberation from the cycle of births and rebirths. Karmic bonds are suppose to be burnt along with the body, which is how one is liberated from needing to be rebirthed. It is said that the funeral fires at the Manikarnika ghat have been burning for thousands of years. A constant stream of corpses come to this ghat to be burnt, day and night. According to my colleague, most corpses do not get enough time to burn properly and are often unceremoniously dumped, half burnt into the sacred river.
I have never traveled to India, but if I do, this certainly seems like an interesting place to check out.
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Come to think of it, a cremation ground - by virtue of being the agent which pulls out a soul from it's earthly body - can also be called "midwife for the end of life." Co-incidence?
Very nice blog, by the way.
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