A bill headed to the California State Assembly, and expected to pass, will be of special interest to our Hindu readers, especially “environmentally conscious” ones. The question is, should chemical cremation be legalized as an alternative to combustion cremation (the latter having a larger carbon footprint)?
Funeral homes and crematoria want to use a liquid chemical process to dissolve bodies instead of cremating them with fire.
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“It’s green. It’s clean. It’s environmentally friendly and it reduces the carbon footprint,” said California state Assemblyman Jeff Miller (R-Corona), who wrote legislation to make the so-called bio-cremation method legal.
Miller said his bill was prompted by a funeral home director in his district who might may buy a bio-cremation machine. The measure would broaden the definition of cremation to include the use of either both fire or and water. Two committees already have approved the measure unanimously, and the full Assembly must pass it before it goes to the Senate. [LAT]
Chemical cremation is properly known as “resomation.” The website of a Scottish company explains the process and benefits:
The coffin is placed in a special chamber and, instead of fire, resomation uses a water and alkali based method which uses the same chemistry as in natural decomposition but is much quicker…The resomation process takes roughly the same time as cremation and the funeral ceremony will be the same. However, it uses less energy than cremation and produces significantly less CO2 and avoids putting mercury and other harmful contaminants into the atmosphere…
After resomation, bone remains are left behind in the form of pure white ash. As with cremation these remains can be placed in an urn and returned to the loved ones. Relative to cremated ash, resomated ash is fine and pure white as can be seen in the photographs on the right of the page. [Link]
So far only one state, Florida, has passed a law legalizing this form of cremation (although services are not yet operational).
So what do the Hindus out there think? The resomated ash does look finer and should be easier to disperse. This process has the side benefit of making it really difficult to go all Sati. But in all seriousness, part of the point of cremation is that you are doing away with your body because it is a discarded piece of nothing once your eternal soul has left. The act of turning the body to ash aids in releasing the soul. If one believes that, then resomation should be no problem. Right?
I’m open-minded, but I don’t think this is orthodox! It’s not just about body-disposal–why not feed body to dogs, then? Role of agni (fire) is key. Human’s agni is gone (death), agni now purifies body.
The principle involved is this – the body is composed of the five elements or ‘Panchabootha’ . We are returning the body to those five elements after death – hence, ideally the cremation must be on open ground, on the earth (bhoomi), under the sky or aakasha (‘ether’) using fire (agni) and air(vayu). Finally, the remains are dispersed in the sea or a river (jala).
agrees with Shilpa and DesiUncle
however Hindu ritual requirements shouldnt preclude this from being allowed as an alternative option- im sure several folks (even non-Hindus) would be willing to take this up
All technically in order, but this seems like something a mafia clean-up crew would use to dispose of the bodies.
Assume a 70 kg person. By mass, about 18% of that person is carbon. That translates into 12.6 kg of pure carbon, or at most 46.2 kg of CO2 upon cremation. The average person in India releases 1400 kg of CO2 per year. The max. amount of CO2 released by dying and being cremated is only 3.3% of what that person spent in just the previous year.
If this liquidation process cuts CO2 emissions in half compared to cremation, it’s still not a dramatic gesture.
But we then scatter the ashes in the Ganga, so all those contaminants end up there.
Nice sales pitch, but no thanks. Light me up under a big blue sky.
Better still, donate all organs, and leave the rest of the body for medical research. I have written that in my will and hope it comes to pass. The late Nanaji Deshmukh, a pioneering social worker of the RSS willed his body to the Dadichi Deh Daan Sanstha, or Dadichi Body Donation Foundation, named after the Rishi of the puranas, Dadichi, who gave up his body to the devas, to forge the weapon Vajra. Nanaji’s body was given away to the All India Inst of Medical Sciences for research purposes.
Abhi: I tend to agree with the opinion(s) that this is one of those “snake oil” selling propaganda which really will not make any measurable difference in reducing our carbon footprint. Speaking about Rishi Dadhichi of Hindu mythology here’s an excerpts: “In Ahmadabad, on the banks of the Sabarmati River is a place called Dudheshwara. This is said to have been the ashram of a great rishi [sage] by the name of Dadhichi [also Dadhyancha]. Different versions of Dadhichi’s story are mentioned in a number of sacred texts, among them Rg Veda, the Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Devi Bhagavatam, and the Mahabharata. Indra went to the banks of the Sabarmati and asked Dadhichi for this favour. Despite the fact that Indra had once cut off his head, Dadhichi did not hesitate. He said, “This body will anyway wither away one day. If it can serve some useful purpose, so be it.†The rishi then drew up his prana [life force] and vacated his body. After animals ate away the body’s flesh, Indra took Dadhichi’s spine and made the specified weapon—the Vajra Ayudha. Dadhichi’s willingness to sacrifice himself numerous times for the benefit of the world is the real point of this story. “The body will one day wear out one way or another. Better to let it wear out from use for the benefit of mankind, than to allow it to simply rust away.†now let the SM readers decide how to dispose off their bodies when dead. We have all heard about how Zorastrians (e.g Parsees of Gujarat,India)prefer to dispose off their remains.
As far as I know, a dead body in Hinduism is an empty vessel which should be destroyed ASAP. The significant part is the soul which has already departed and can’t be destroyed anyways. This is different from Abrahamic faiths where the dead person (body+soul) lies waiting/resting in the grave till Doomsday.
I feel fire was just a natural choice in the tropics given the abundance of wood. The directive to cremate immediately could also be an adaptation to prevent the body from rotting in the hot and humid climate. Fire cremation is also not universal among Hindus. The dead bodies of Hindu children and sanyasis are also not cremated.
Some Buddhists took this analogy further and in Tibet they practiced “Sky burial” which is a dead person’s final act of charity by “donating” his/her body to vultures. This is also an adaptation to Tibet’s rocky surface (digging is tough) and sparse tree cover.
I am all for organ donation (am registered myself) and any environment friendly cadaver disposal methods. I feel adherents of Dharmic religions should adopt these methods and lead by example.
I realized that I forgot the carbon content of the fuel itself. Wood is about 50% carbon. Apparently a formal Hindu cremation does use a lot of it, but there are ways to reduce it. These “optimized” pyres use about 100 kg of wood, or 128 kg of CO2.
In light of that, there may be some merit to the idea of reducing CO2 footprint. But the article in the second link notes that most Hindus have a problem even with the “high-tech” but otherwise standard pyre. The idea of being chemically reduced just turns too many people off.
The Persians used to do that too. Leaving the dead for carrion is probably an older funeral rite than cremation.
As for this business I have my doubts about the carbon footprint claim. How much carbon is involved in producing and transporting the chemical?
I’m not a hindu and I’m seriously considering this for myself.
Catholics are technically Abrahamic and they officially believe in purgatory. Literally, belief varies widely among individuals. But Jews pretty much believe that the grave itself is hell/sheol and that you just stay there until mashiach calls. Or somethinornuffin.
I’ve also hypothesized that a proper parabolic mirror heater could effectively render all water from a corpse with absolutely minimal environmental impact- the fuel would be the sun, so the only byproducts would be gasses from the corpse and whatever costs involved with manufacturing the still. Also, the steam released could be channeled into turbines to create “green” energy, which could offset manufacturing waste. Some engineer needs to make it so.
The argument of having a larger carbon footprint is not very convincing as not all carbon footprints are the same. Carbon emissions originating from fossil fuels are really bad since they are releasing carbon locked up under the earth millions of years ago. Human cremation on the other hand is not great, but not as bad either, since the carbon being released is something that was originally in the atmosphere a few months/years ago, and was converted to carbs by plants which is then consumed by humans to become a part of the body tissue.
In addition,the quantity released during cremation is miniscule as compared to all other human activities that it hardly makes any difference.
So the direct comparison between the carbon emissions from burning coal or gas and human cremation by fire is not a good idea.
With the advances in understanding the natural world since then, the process could stand some revision I think.
I wonder if the American school system’s inability to teach people how to process symbolism and metaphor bears some responsibility for the pervasive rash of scriptural literalism that infects so many.
Hmmm…for my parents, I definitely wouldn’t do this…its just not as aesthetically moving…
But for myself, though I’m quite religious myself, I’d consider it in so far as I don’t really care what happens to my body when I die.
This has got to be the lamest thing I have heard from the “green” people. You can reduce your carbon footprint more if you done wipe your a$$ for a week and instead use water. So should we outlaw toilet paper ??
swati wrote: This is different from Abrahamic faiths where the dead person (body+soul) lies waiting/resting in the grave till Doomsday.
No. This is the Muslim concept, but not the Catholic one. Catholics believe that the soul receives the particular judgement after death, sending it heavan or otherwise. The body is reunited with the soul at the time fo the last judgement. (See paragrpah 997 at this vatican site: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2H.HTM)
Purgatory is, as of 1999, not a place. It is a condition, and a temporary one.
“The coffin is placed in a special chamber…”
Don’t coffins contribute to the carbon footprint? They seem to be overly elaborate and unnecessary, whether for cremation or burial. What about elaborate tombs that take up valuable land? All of these contribute to waste of natural resources.
If it meant gov’t sponsored bidets, totally.
in diarmand mccolough’s christianity: the first three thousand years the author claims that the majority of britons now are cremated. the issue is space. i think many more people of the abrahamic faiths will start making recourse to this, because there’s always been confusion on the issue of bodily resurrection (i don’t care what the vatican says, no matter what the official there’s always been a crap load of contradiction between the dichotomous hellenic ideas of a soul ascending to the heavens and the older hebrew idea of an omnipotent god willing bodily resurrection by fiat).
Debatable as to the merits of the washing one’s behind as one would have to use a lot more water to wash one’s hands with soap. The best method is a combination of regular TP followed by moist TP followed by a quick rinse. Less Tp, cleaner behind, not too much water.
i use the communal fountains. that way others can reuse the wwater too.
15 years in the US and counting. Never used TP. I just take a shower afterwards. Its only once per day early in the morning. Drink the coffee, do the deed, take the shower, then work out, then take another shower & go to work. Where does TP come into this ?
Cleaning out the shower drain afterward.
This masochistic and faddish desire to lessen one’s “carbon footprint” is true confirmation of Chesterton’s famous maxim, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”
Who is that Chesterton ? Does he use the TP or take a shower ? Stay on point please other SM admin will delete your comment.
I think the biggest environmental victory would be if we stop burying the dead and rather cremate like Hindu style.
Burning using chemicals vs fire is an extremely small potato vs burying the body.
seriously… mungum above is right on and am surprised nobody’s broguht it up yet. it’s positively unholy to fill the body with chemicals and park it on a prime piece of real estate/arable land. burn and dump. that’s the way to go – chemical or no chemical.
I think I saw this on Pulp Fiction 🙂
ouch. am i the only one who winced at the sati joke attempt?
I prefer the way of my ancestors; fed on by vultures. Give back to mother nature says I.. Other than that I’d go the way of the majority of my ancestors and unmarked grave.
For some reason I just can’t reconcile to cremation..
Zach, It has do with Parsis considering fire as holy and cremating would be akin to defiling agni. The Parsis and the Tibetans both prefer the vultures, although Tibetans are not averse to cremation as happened in the recent Qinghai quake deaths. What do Pasrsis in the US and Europe do?
Nope.
In our community we bury the dead (no coffin), & they are Hindu (+hardcore vegetarians). The point is don’t view Hinduism with such a narrow view, it is so wide & varied that if you say something i can show you contradictory examples. (btw I am not the same guy who has commented on no. 3)
im getting cryogenically frozen. im going to come back for real…. it will be great.
Reincarnation is the ultimate Green.
Am I the only one who wants to be ground up and reconstituted as soylents ?
I wouldn’t expect a neanderthal like you to understand, but it’s more than one’s “carbon footprint”. It’s about leaving a little as possible behind in any form.
In death, remember the living.
I choose not to consume @ 3 million BTUs for the sole purpose of incinerating my remains. With cremation about 4% of my body, referred to as “ashes”, would be returned to my family. What happens to the rest of my body? 96% of my deceased body would be spewed from a smokestack and dumped into my survivors’ atmosphere. The intense heat would release numerous pollutants, including highly hazardous mercury vapors and other toxins. How could I in good conscience select a process that renders my body into pollution and hazardous vapors?
CycledLife: http://www.cycledlife.com manufactures water and alkali disposition systems
I thought of donating my body for medical research
Bikesh Shrestha, bikesh@hotmail.de
Ever since I was a child, I wondered why dead bodies are burned. I live quite near a cemetery (a funeral pyre for burning bodies) and occasionally, when the wind is strong, the smoke enters our house. I always felt that the smell was bad for our health and for the biosphere too, as we breathe in the air. Those were my childhood thoughts. Now I know more about the biosphere, atmosphere and gasses found on Earth.
As I gradually became more educated, I felt that I wanted my body to be buried under a big tree, with no tomb, as Christians have, or to donate my body to a university for medical research. I told my parents and other members of my family but they said it was a foolish idea and against our religion.
However, now I know that this is one of the best things I could do for mankind. I’ve always wondered, since I was a child, why the Nepalese burned bodies. This is just a custom and has no scientific basis.
During my childhood I saw many funeral processions. Some bodies had even been placed on a large chair. This is a Buddhist tradition, especially in the Bajracharya community.
I saw lots of people in the procession behind a dead body (malami haru) and I always wondered why. I told my mother that I didn’t want to trouble people after my death so to just take a taxi or ambulance and take my body to Swoyambhu and bury it under a big tree. I thought that my body would decompose and the tree would gain some fertiliser and would grow even bigger because of this human fertiliser and that, ultimately, it would give out good oxygen into the atmosphere and that mankind would benefit.
I also thought that burning bodies uses up a lot of wood, which meant we would have to cut down trees, but that we should not cut down trees because they are a source of oxygen and that would mean degrading the environment.
Gradually I developed the idea of donating my eyes. My family was opposed to it and said that I would not attain salvation. They called it “Paar lagdaina”. I actually still do not know the meaning of “Paar lagdaina”. It is just a conservative and ignorant idea.
I always told my family about my ideas and they called me a foolish child. a long while late, I got ill and was taken to hospital where I saw many people who did not have any major disease dying. I felt that the body should not be burned but instead used to feed the big jungle animals, so that they would not have to kill deer, wild pigs, antelope, etc.
In Nepal, on Lord Krishna’s birthday a certain street (Tol) has a photographic exhibition of Lord Krishna. I saw that Buddha has cut off his own flesh to give to a weak, hungry tiger. I was shocked – how could anyone give a piece of his body in such a manner? Only Buddha could do it it because he is superhuman – this being an extremely thing to do. But I was also searching for something else.
Finally, after reading various textbooks at college (around 1978 when I was 16), I read about the first human heart transplant performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in South Africa. This enlightened me and motivated me. Here was my answer.
After reading about that, I wondered when it would happen in Nepal. Now respected doctors perform organ transplants very successfully. Well done to our life-saving doctors. Doctors are one type of Boddhisatva (one of the paths to Buddhahood). I also read of a Tibetan tradition of throwing dead bodies out to feed eagles and vultures. This is a very good idea and very praise-worthy.
Ever since then I have been interested in human organ transplantation. In my opinion, Nepal lags behind in this field so we need to do more to encourage people to donate their bodies and/or organs.
Note:
I have heard that some teaching hospitals use the bodies of the poor which are left at the hospital. I don’t know how true this is. In my opinion, it is wrong because no-one has the right to do so without permission. If this is not true, my apologies.
Here is excerpt: for you to read. Groote Schuur Hospital was placed centre stage in the world’s spotlight when Professor Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on the third of December 1967. Sadly, Mr Louis Washkansky only lived for 18 days, succumbing in the end to pneumonia. His new heart beat strongly to the end. Christiaan Neethling Barnard was born in the town of Beaufort West, on the edge of the great Karoo, the dry and arid interior of South Africa, in 1922.His father was a preacher and there were 4 boys in the family. He did well at school, learned music and played sport, and decided on leaving school to study medicine at the University of Cape Town. The Barnard family was not wealthy but managed to secure a 3 year scholarship. He stayed with his older brother and walked to the University. There was little money to spare and even less time for leisure. Another problem was language, as his mother tongue was Afrikaans, and he had to learn to express himself in English. After 6 years he graduated and did internship and residency at Groote Schuur Hospital and Peninsula Maternity. He then joined a colleague and moved to a small town, Ceres, and married Louwtjie. The seeds of his future career were sown when one of his patients delivered a baby boy with a heart defect which could not be remedied. The baby died, causing him to think deeply about this and foresee the need for remedial surgery and the replacement of heart valves. Written on 4th June 2008, FINAL
I thought of donating my body for medical research
Bikesh Shrestha, bikesh@hotmail.de
Ever since I was a child, I wondered why dead bodies are burned. I live quite near a cemetery (a funeral pyre for burning bodies) and occasionally, when the wind is strong, the smoke enters our house. I always felt that the smell was bad for our health and for the biosphere too, as we breathe in the air. Those were my childhood thoughts. Now I know more about the biosphere, atmosphere and gasses found on Earth.
As I gradually became more educated, I felt that I wanted my body to be buried under a big tree, with no tomb, as Christians have, or to donate my body to a university for medical research. I told my parents and other members of my family but they said it was a foolish idea and against our religion.
However, now I know that this is one of the best things I could do for mankind. I’ve always wondered, since I was a child, why the Nepalese burned bodies. This is just a custom and has no scientific basis.
During my childhood I saw many funeral processions. Some bodies had even been placed on a large chair. This is a Buddhist tradition, especially in the Bajracharya community.
I saw lots of people in the procession behind a dead body (malami haru) and I always wondered why. I told my mother that I didn’t want to trouble people after my death so to just take a taxi or ambulance and take my body to Swoyambhu and bury it under a big tree. I thought that my body would decompose and the tree would gain some fertiliser and would grow even bigger because of this human fertiliser and that, ultimately, it would give out good oxygen into the atmosphere and that mankind would benefit.
I also thought that burning bodies uses up a lot of wood, which meant we would have to cut down trees, but that we should not cut down trees because they are a source of oxygen and that would mean degrading the environment.
Gradually I developed the idea of donating my eyes. My family was opposed to it and said that I would not attain salvation. They called it “Paar lagdaina”. I actually still do not know the meaning of “Paar lagdaina”. It is just a conservative and ignorant idea.
I always told my family about my ideas and they called me a foolish child. a long while late, I got ill and was taken to hospital where I saw many people who did not have any major disease dying. I felt that the body should not be burned but instead used to feed the big jungle animals, so that they would not have to kill deer, wild pigs, antelope, etc.
In Nepal, on Lord Krishna’s birthday a certain street (Tol) has a photographic exhibition of Lord Krishna. I saw that Buddha has cut off his own flesh to give to a weak, hungry tiger. I was shocked – how could anyone give a piece of his body in such a manner? Only Buddha could do it it because he is superhuman – this being an extremely thing to do. But I was also searching for something else.
Finally, after reading various textbooks at college (around 1978 when I was 16), I read about the first human heart transplant performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in South Africa. This enlightened me and motivated me. Here was my answer.
After reading about that, I wondered when it would happen in Nepal. Now respected doctors perform organ transplants very successfully. Well done to our life-saving doctors. Doctors are one type of Boddhisatva (one of the paths to Buddhahood). I also read of a Tibetan tradition of throwing dead bodies out to feed eagles and vultures. This is a very good idea and very praise-worthy.
Ever since then I have been interested in human organ transplantation. In my opinion, Nepal lags behind in this field so we need to do more to encourage people to donate their bodies and/or organs.
Note:
I have heard that some teaching hospitals use the bodies of the poor which are left at the hospital. I don’t know how true this is. In my opinion, it is wrong because no-one has the right to do so without permission. If this is not true, my apologies.
Here is excerpt: for you to read. Groote Schuur Hospital was placed centre stage in the world’s spotlight when Professor Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on the third of December 1967. Sadly, Mr Louis Washkansky only lived for 18 days, succumbing in the end to pneumonia. His new heart beat strongly to the end. Christiaan Neethling Barnard was born in the town of Beaufort West, on the edge of the great Karoo, the dry and arid interior of South Africa, in 1922.His father was a preacher and there were 4 boys in the family. He did well at school, learned music and played sport, and decided on leaving school to study medicine at the University of Cape Town. The Barnard family was not wealthy but managed to secure a 3 year scholarship. He stayed with his older brother and walked to the University. There was little money to spare and even less time for leisure. Another problem was language, as his mother tongue was Afrikaans, and he had to learn to express himself in English. After 6 years he graduated and did internship and residency at Groote Schuur Hospital and Peninsula Maternity. He then joined a colleague and moved to a small town, Ceres, and married Louwtjie. The seeds of his future career were sown when one of his patients delivered a baby boy with a heart defect which could not be remedied. The baby died, causing him to think deeply about this and foresee the need for remedial surgery and the replacement of heart valves. Written on 4th June 2008, FINAL
This is interesting. My belief is that when I am dead – I am dead. As a veteran, I get a free burial at a national cemetery which will cost nothing. My wife wants to be cremated. We do not have any beliefs that preclude chemical burial, and we are curious how this trend [roceeds.