Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

condition consisting of both dying within her house and
not having a son to perform the death rituals. All these
rituals and extra expenses were required for preparing
the corpse and making it pure enough to be handed over
to the gods. Cosmogonically speaking, everybody is
equally pure when they enter the divine sphere
regardless of how much pollution humans have to deal
with.
To conclude, it seems that there are two levels of
pollution and purity in relation to embodied sins and the
individual’s further reincarnation. Firstly, the
purification of the deceased’s body as a corpse of flesh
belongs to the realm of the descendants. The relatives
have to morn and purify the corpse in accordance with
the level of varna purity/impurity. This is mandatory for
all as a part of their varna obligations. The relatives
mourn the varna sin or degree of impurity which is a
static residue that works in accordance with the scheme
of 11, 13, 15 or 30 days of pollution. Secondly, the
deceased has to pay back his own sins in accordance
with his personal sins or achievements, which work in
accordance with the karma theory. The former aspect is
a cosmogonic matter, which works in accordance with
the ritual obligations each person belonging to a caste
group has to fulfil as a part of their dharma. The latter
aspect is more individual, stressing personal karma and
further incarnation as a consequence of good and bad
deeds. Although these two aspects are conjoined there is
a difference between the collective and the individual
roles and duties in society and cosmos.
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The consequences of approaching funerals as a purifying
process in relation to life-giving waters will be
elaborated and synthesised in the conclusion. In order to
enable such a conclusion I will now turn from the
present to the past, searching for various threads which
may illuminate developments of cosmogonic processes
in religions on the sub-Indian continent. The long time
spans and the knowledge production of ancient,
forgotten or re-discovered societies and peoples is one of
the objectives of archaeology. Societies prior to, or
without, written sources, belong to one special group of
inquiries in archaeology. I will therefore approach death
and life-giving waters from an archaeological
perspective emphasising not only material culture in the
present but in the past as well. My aim is to follow the
progress of knowledge production literally from the
cradle to the grave. Today’s tradition is the outcome of a
tradition dating thousands of years back. I started in
Nepal developing perspectives while witnessing
cremations, and with this point of departure I have
interpreted cosmogonic processes. These interpretations
will subsequently be used as a theoretical framework
creating an understanding of structural processes and
mortuary practices in the past. This is in one word, of
course, an analogy, but I will argue that it is not only a
simple and randomly chosen analogy, but a theoretically
developed perspective and premise which enhances our
knowledge of the past. The journey into contemporary
Hindu practices and mythologies are therefore a
thoroughly and theoretically developed approach, which
opens up fields for inquiries, understandings, and
interpretations of the past (Kaliff & Oestigaard 2004).