Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

The names of the informants are not pseudonyms. In
many anthropological case studies it is a practice of
courtesy to hide the real identities of the informants.
This is not done in this case because it is basically
impossible, and anyone who visits the cemetery in
Faridpur will immediately reveal the real names.
Moreover, much of this information is common in the
local community and not conceived as sensitive or
controversial, and the three persons concerned are
acknowledged by the laymen for their duties and their
work performed at the cemetery. These three are Hazera
Begum, who is currently in charge of the cemetery,
Badol Mohanta who worked and cremated at the
cemetery until his death in 1997, and his former wife and
now widow Reno Mohanta, who is working as a temple
assistant in the Shashan Kali temple at Ambikapur.
The Shashan was established before the British period,
although nobody knows the exact age of the cemetery.
150-200 years ago the Shashan Ghat was located by the
riverside of Padma (the Bengali term for Ganga), but the
river has changed its course during the last two
centuries, and today the cemetery is located several
kilometres from Ganga. Before 1971 there were three
cemeteries in Faridpur. The two other cemeteries went
out of use after the Liberation War since most of the
Hindus migrated to India, and the Muslims complained
that the cemeteries were located too close to the habitual
areas. The name of the Shashan Ghat at Ambikapur was
originally Govindapur, but since there was another place
in town named Govindapur, the cemetery was re-named
Ambikapur in order to avoid confusion. The cemetery at
Ambikapur was initially located in an open, wide space,
but now the river has destroyed most of the original area.
The municipality has the official responsibility for the
buildings and the Shashan area, but there is a Cremation
Committee which has the practical and daily
responsibility for the cremations.
At the Shashan Ghat there is a cement block on which
the dead body is laid and on which the oldest son, who
takes water from the river, washes the corpse before
cremation. There is a crematorium platform with two
iron made pyre constructions used to cremate the dead
(fig. 5.5). The platform made of cement is covered with
a roof, which gives the cremations shelter from rain
during the monsoon. From each of the two pyre
constructions runs a cemented channel, and the two
channels conjoin and the channel continues into a small
river (fig. 5.6), which in the dry season is more like a
pond of stagnant water than a floating river.
There are three possible ways to perform funerals; the
deceased might be cremated, buried, or flooded.
Flooding is very rare and mostly performed when
cremation and burial as ways of disposing of the
deceased are impossible, for instance during the
Liberation War when too many were killed and the only
way to solve the problem with all the corpses was to give
the dead water burials. If a person expresses a wish that
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he or she would like to be buried, then the request is
normally fulfilled, but the majority of Hindus are
cremated. Both boys and girls below twelve years are
buried, but if the deceased is older irrespective of
gender, he or she is cremated. Some may even cremate
their deceased if they have passed the age of seven.
Unmarried women are cremated except if they are
Brahmans. In both cremations and burials men lie on
their chest whereas females lie on their back. The
entrance into the next world is a birth, and the positions
in funerals have their counterpart in the common
understanding that during delivery the boys are born into
the world on their chest and the girls are born into the
world on their back.
Water is used to extinguish the fire on the pyre and the
remains of the wood used during the cremation is
collected and piled at the west side of the crematorium.
Water is added to cool the iron bars and to wash the
ashes into the river, but most often the channel is not
drained properly, and therefore it contains bones and
ashes from cremations. In dry periods when the water
table is low, there might be a lot of ashes and bones in
the channel depending upon how meticulously the
charcoal and the bones have been washed away. It is the
sons who are responsible for washing the ashes down
into the drainage leading to the river. The ashes of the
deceased are not immersed directly into Padma since the
main course of the almighty river flows several
kilometres away. Hence, the ashes are immersed into a
local connecting river – Kumar River – which is a
contributory to Ganga, and as such, immersions in
Kumar River are seen as ritually and spiritually identical
to immersions of ashes in Ganga. All rivers are
connected, and when the ashes are immersed in the local
river they will flood to Ganges and the deceased will
attain heaven. Although the ashes will not pass by
Varanasi, which is the case for upstream Hindus, it is
believed that when the ashes reach the ocean, the soul
will attain heaven. Every Shashan is supposed to be
located at the riverbanks of Ganga. The main importance
is the Ganga water, not whether it is located upstream or
downstream of Kashi. After a cremation the ashes are
immersed into the river, which purifies the deceased, and
the soul is freed from guilt and the dead will go to
heaven.
In low-caste funerals the relatives cannot give anything
but water in the deceased’s mouth. Other castes boil rice
and mix it together with banana into a paste which is
given to the deceased in his hand or mouth before the
pyre is lit. According to the high-castes, due to caste
sanctions and jati rules, the low-castes are not allowed
to be cremated. However, even though the prescribed
authoritative and orthodox funeral practice is burial,
today the majority of the low-castes are cremated at
Ambikapur Shashan Ghat. The cemetery for burials is
located south of the crematorium (fig. 5.7). The most
recent graves were located N-S or NNW-SSE with a
ceramic pot at the head to the north.