INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

the humid monsoon causes incidental price rises. On one occasion a supplier at
Manikarnika Ghat informed that a cremation normally requires 7, 9 or 11 man (equal
to 40 kilogram) of wood, depending on the size of the body, and would cost between
600 and 1000 rupees. A Sikh interlocutor, who arranged three cremations at the time
of my field-work, estimated that the minimum expense for a cremation would be
5000 rupees and could easily rise to the double if all outlays were taken into account.
The mourning family is expected to hand over donations to the funeral priest and
negotiate with the dom, the funeral attendant from an untouchable caste, for the ritual
service of giving fire. 625 Before the mourners are allowed to commence the cremation
ceremony they need to register the death to the Municipal Corporation, which has
registration offices nearby the Manikarnika Ghat. 626
The Sikh cremation ceremony is called “the last ritual” (Antim samskar) or “the
fire ritual” (Agni samskar), and consists of four central acts: the breaking of an earthen
pot (dhamalak bhanana), 627 offering the fire (agni bhent), reading of Ardas, and reciting
the hymn Kirtan Sohila. When the mourning procession has reached the cremation
site, the chief mourner, usually the eldest son of the deceased is given an earthen pot
filled with Ganga water which he pours over the dead body from head to feet before
breaking the pot into pieces by throwing it on the ground. Scholars have suggested
that the pot symbolizes the human skull and the crushing of it thus signifies the release
of the soul from the body. 628 The pot cracking may even be interpreted as a
symbolic substitute of the traditional custom of kapal kriya, “the rite of the skull”,
where the mourner was supposed to crack the skull of the dead with a bamboo pole
in the middle of the cremation, believing it to be a release of the soul from the material
body and the real moment of death. 629 Among my Sikh informants in Varanasi I
did not find similar significations attached to the ceremony. A few interlocutors mentioned
that the “real” time of death is when Yama hits his staff on the head of the
dead and the head is fully destroyed, although they did draw any connection between
this concept and the ritualized act of breaking a pot at the cremation ground.
The ritual is considered just a prescribed custom of an originally Hindi cremation
ceremony which people are instructed to perform. In ceremonies I took part in the act
625
In this mentioned case the funeral priest was given 201 rupees. The dom started out with 1100
rupees for providing the fire and after some bargaining they were able to cut it down and agree
on 500 rupees. At several times I was told that it was supposed to be a set price of 151 rupees for
the funeral fire.
626
After the death the family contact the local council (sabhashad) of their residential area to get a
certificate of their local registration and sometimes also a certificate of natural death from a
doctor. In the case of an accidental death the family also must receive a post-mortem report.
These certificates are then handed over to the Municipal Corporation office at the ghat where
the death gets registered for a public death certificate.
627
Kalsi remarks that dhamalak bhanana is a changed form of ardh marag (Sanskrit) and addh marag
(Hindi) ‒ the act of breaking a pot on the way to the cremation ground (Kalsi1996: 43).
628
Kalsi 1994: 151.
629
Parry 1994: 23 ‒ 24, 177.
382
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008