Real Sky Burial Images

[chris]

They "bury them" this way because the ground is frozen solid, making actual graves impossible. This village is at a high elevation and is still very primitive, so no machinery to do the digging for them.


Sky burial or ritual dissection was once a common funerary practice in Tibet wherein a human corpse is cut into small pieces and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements or the mahabhuta and animals – especially to birds of prey. In Tibetan the practice is known as jhator (Tibetan: "giving alms to the birds."

The majority of Tibetans adhere to Buddhism, which teaches reincarnation. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it, or nature may let it decompose. So the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the remains. In much of Tibet the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and with fuel and timber scarce, a sky burial is often more practical than cremation.

Additionally, since no fuel, land, or topsoil is consumed, this way of burial is arguably more ecologically friendly than cremation or interment.

[dargakis]

it's a good thing the chinese are wiping the tibet people off the planet, this is just disgusting

[chris]

I think this is more out of necessity then anything else. The Tibetan people are usually very peaceful people.

[Nyckname]

The way I understand it, it's not actually because the ground is frozen. It's part of the circle of life thing. I'd like to have that done, but in California with the condors.