I've just been reading about it and it is interesting how many traditions used to or still prohibit cremation. It seems like there are a lot of practical reasons to do it but for justification of doing it I have some ideas.Khemehekis wrote: ↑23 Apr 2020 02:03 I haven't addressed the question of last rites in the Txabao culture yet, but given that I'm considering that lexical distinction, it would probably be a necessary part of their culture if the language is to make such a distinction, so I'll say yes, the Txabao do cremate the deceased. Maybe I can tie that into the gods and goddesses somehow; does anyone know the reasoning as to why Dharmic religions normally cremate bodies?
1. Ideas about the soul not being able to pass to the other world if the body is not burnt. As if it would otherwise be trapped. Perhaps, this would make areas with a lot of corpses unnerving or haunted places. Like other people's cemeteries.
2. Ideas that fire is cleansing or purifying. As if something unwelcome or unclean about a dead body, that say, once the soul leaves the body may get occupied by an unclean spirit.
3. A nomadic people may not want to leave their dead behind so causing the body to go up in smoke frees the spirit to travel with them.
4. Ideas about uncleanliness and the ground. Either that corpses make land less healthy or the ground would make the body unclean.
5. Cremation avoids the indignity of decomposition.
6. We could also have an in world creature that commonly digs up carrion and corpses and eats it in the region so cremation avoids that fate easily rather than digging very deep graves.