Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

theories of castes as an organisation based on relative
degrees of purity. Before going on to the rituals
conducted during King Birendra’s cremation, I will
briefly introduce some of these features from his
grandfather’s cremation: King Tribhuwan. King
Tribhuwan perceived the Kumari as the virginal origin
of existence or the Virgin Mother (Leuchtag 1958:10).
The Kumari’s blessing has been considered very
auspicious since King Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered
Kathmandu and was blessed by the Kumari. In 1954 she
placed the tika first on the then Crown Prince Mahendra
instead of his father King Tribhuwan. This was
interpreted as a bad omen, and the king died within six
months from that day (Raj 2001:13-14), on March 13,
1955 in Zurich. King Tribhuwan was transported to
Pashupatinath in Nepal where he landed on March 17.
All Nepal mourned their beloved king, and thousands of
men shaved their heads. The country was in a national
grieving period for thirteen days. The funeral ceremony
at the burning ghats of Pasupatinath was spectacular. A
Brahmin Funeral priest cut a piece of flesh from about
the king’s navel. This piece of flesh was weighted with
golden coins and buried on a small island in the centre of
Bagmati. This ritual is called astu. A sliver of bone was
thereafter taken from the king’s forehead and placed in a
golden casket, which the Brahman walked to Redi, a
journey that takes eight days, where he buried the casket
in the middle of the sacred River Gandakhi. It was
believed that the bone would turn to ammonite – an
incarnation of Vishnu – as time passed by. The
Mahabrahman, who had performed the funeral ceremony
was named Sri Krishna Bhatta, and he was exiled to
India. But he was no longer poor because for thirteen
days he lived in the king’s palace, smoked the king’s
cigarettes, slept in the king’s bed and enjoyed all the
dead king’s possessions. The royal kitchens prepared
whatever he desired, but the food was highly impure.
Parts of the meal were deliberately contaminated by a
paste made from the bone of the king’s forehead, which
is called katto. The priest received 200,000 rupees in
gifts for his services and 10,000 rupees in alms.
Moreover, he received two elephants, a richly
caparisoned horse, and some of the king’s personal
belongings. The gifts were the rewards for taking upon
his shoulders the demons released by the king’s death.
He was then expelled from Nepal (Leuchtag 1958:235-
236). Both the katto- and the astu-rituals were a part of
King Tribhuwan’s funeral.
“Katto” means literally “something not worth eating”
(Shrestha 2001:131). Traditionally it is a part of the dead
body, and in particular the brain, which is eaten. By
eating the “uneatable” the priest becomes declared as an
outcaste, and he is banned and driven out of Kathmandu
valley. During the katto-ritual of King Birendra and
Dipendra, flesh was not consummated officially, but at
the end of the cremation some ashes were collected and
mixed with the royal feast. The katto-ritual insures that
the soul will find peace and not disturb the living. The
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katto-ceremony requires a sacrifice by a Brahman, and
the priest takes the burden of the dead man’s soul by
eating a small part of his body, and consequently the
priest breaks his caste rules and violates one of the most
polluting taboos. The ceremony ensures the salvation of
the king’s soul. The katto-priest is seen as a “sin eater”.
The katto- ceremony (Saiyya Daan) is probably related
to the Aghor cult of Shaivaism (which will be elaborated
later). The rite takes place the 11th day after death when
the deceased’s body takes spiritual form. The king is
believed to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu when he is
alive during his reigns of the kingdom. He is a god on
earth. On the 11th day he will return to Baikuntha – the
heavenly abode of Vishnu. According to tradition, one
does not eat anything where the 11th day mourning take
place, even drinking water is prohibited. Consequently,
the one who consumes a whole meal is highly polluted
and defiled, and the practice of eating pieces of human
flesh of the king is the most inauspicious act of all.
The tradition of katto is centuries old, and during the
Rana regime these rituals were common. In the 18th and
19th centuries when there were numerous petty
kingdoms in Nepal, the kings adopted and followed this
Indian tradition, and they started to give an increasing
number of gifts to the priests to impress each other.
Before 1951 the Rana Prime ministry regime ruled
Nepal. The King was without real power and the Prime
Minister was the most powerful man in the country, and
as such it seems plausible that the ministers performed
divine and royal rituals for themselves. The practice was
so institutionalised during the Rana period that Brahman
priests were also hired to eat katto at the death of
generals and colonels of the Royal Nepal Army.
Donations were given to a number of Brahmans who
conducted ritual functions during the funerals and the
preparations. Other donations were offered to the
Brahmans who carried the corpses of the kings and lit
their funeral pyres. A large amount of gold, silver, and
cash were also given to the priests who ate katto, and
they received the elephants that were used during the
rituals.
The katto-ritual has to be performed due to tradition, and
the common explanation of the ritual is that Man is God
and God is Man. The katto-ceremony has to be
conducted by an Upadhyay Brahman priest. The Jaisi
Brahmans are only capable of taking on their own sins in
death rituals. Upadhyay Brahmans, on the other hand,
are able to take onto themselves other people’s sins and
conduct their mourning rituals. It is therefore only the
latter type of funeral priests who can perform the kattoritual.
After the deaths of King Birendra and King Dipendra, a
lot of poor low-caste people at Pashupatinath wanted to
eat the katto due to the expected amount of money the
priest would receive from the ritual. These low-caste
people were not ritual pure prior to the ritual, which was
a mandatory criteria.