BOOK REVIEW: Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth

BOOK REVIEW:
Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth:
Contemporary Sri Lankan Practice and its Origins
(Rita Langer)

by Sean Hillman
Religion Department
University of Toronto
Dec. 2009

Rita Langer's dissertation on death, funerals and post-funeral rites in Theravada Buddhism skilfully integrates the usage of texts, both Buddhist and pre-Buddhist, with current ethnographic data from Sri Lanka. She sets out to show the influence of both Buddhist and pre-Buddhist (or non-Buddhist) death and dying practices and principles, as found in the texts, on contemporary Buddhists and is quite successful and convincing in her conclusions. A lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, UK, this study fits into the broader context of her research into Theravada death rituals in Southeast Asia and China. Let us explore her methods and findings.

First and foremost, Langer relies heavily on texts in her analysis. She goes to the Buddhist Canonical texts, including all of the genres in the Pali "Three Baskets" (Tripitaka): Vinaya (discipline), Nikayas (discourses) and Abhidhamma (logic, metaphysics, psychology). Excerpts from the Vinaya give examples of monastic death activities, and those from the Nikayas include events in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta which concern the passing away of the Buddha. These are both relevant in establishing Buddhist norms around death practices, and Langer puts them beside the earliest Hindu beliefs and practices as found in the Vedas, Upaniṣads and Brāhmaņas in her search for remnants of Hindu belief and practice in Buddhism. The textual component of this search is not as compelling as that of her enthnography. For example, Langer does not make a strong case when she points to a lingering sybolism of the funeral pyre as a sacrifice. An ornament is offered to the Buddha's body at his funeral and she likens it to the offering of an animal skin in Vedic practice. It is a stretch. She belabours the point and spends far too long tangentially explaining Hindu practices unrelated to Buddhism, to no end. Actually, at one point Langer entirely reproduces full sections of her study word for word. The sections concern the fascinating connection in Buddhist practice with Hindu ideas of purity as found in practices of sifting bone from ash in remains. Fascinating, yes, but made redundant by the author. As well, for all of her extensive combing through the texts, which is the obvious result of an enormous amount of labour, Langer sometimes misses some key symbolism in both the Hindu and Buddhist texts. One Brāhmaņa passage refers to a sacrificial fire and Langer eagerly assumes that it refers to a funeral pyre and then extrapolates that, since the poor could not afford cremations (timber was costly), this would mean that such people could not ascend after death. However, in many Hindu and Buddhist esoteric texts the fire actually refers to life-energy itself, which defeats her later reasonings (anyone can ascend!). Such narrow readings are coupled with more blatant missed symbolic references, such as in the narrative of Indian king who laments the loss of his 84 000 cities at death, and his Queen's consolation that he should abandon desire for them. The number 84 000 is often and explicitly mentioned in the texts as the total number of existent delusions in the mind, and so, the Queen is actually asking her King to abandon delusions.

Textually, possibly the most impressive accomplishment in this study is Langer's extensive and impressive presentation on the process of the transformation of consciousness at death. Distilled, clear and easy to follow, she particularly sheds light on the complicated concepts of ripening and throwing karma as found in the Abhidhamma. The mental states that ripen at death, which also serve to throw the consciousness into the next rebirth, are likened to bulls in a pen. Strong bulls are habitual tendencies, and bulls near the gate are merely those that achieve pole position by their proximate location to the exit, like mental states that arise close to death-time for whatever reason. Although it is most likely that the strong bulls will escape first, a weak bull near the gate has a good chance as well. The story of the great Indian Dharma King Ashoka at death reinforces the metaphor, as Langer describes his feelings of remorse near his death (weak bulls near the gate, or proximate ripening mental states) throwing him into a lower realm for a brief time only (the bulls were weak). The King quickly ascends to a celestial realm for a lengthy span (strong bulls, or habitual ripening mental states) because of the strength of his previous vast, and ongoing, good actions. This imagery is a most powerful way for this complicated exposition of death-consciousness to be introduced and is useful at every level of familiarity with the Buddhist presentation on mind and mental factors.

Next is the ethnographic aspect of Langer’s study. During her 6 months stay in one particular Sri Lankan village Langer observed several events, including funerals and post-funeral activities which included an offering ceneromy six days post-funeral, and a religious discourse event seven days post-funeral. She also gathered information on the community's beliefs through interviews and questionnaires done with both monastics and householders. Noted during the interviewing process was an interesting difference in the openness of the informants depending on the language used and the subject matter at hand. Using English, rather than Sinhalese, and covering sensitive material, such as the existence of ghosts, both made for more guarded responses. This forced some reliance on secondary literature, with good effect, and a call for future study into how language choices affect the quality of interviews. Both the interviews and questionnaires find trends in modern practice and the views held by the community, but Langer also takes the opportunity to include interesting anomalies in the responses. She mentions the one person who says that people pray in advance to have a good last thought before death, and also points out one person who organizes a ceremony to dedicate merit to pets, much to the chagrin of the rest of the community. Such examples add perspective and also a lightheartedness to the dissertation. Here again, this time in enthnographic mode, we find Langer’s continued search for Hindu remnants in Buddhism as she compares modern Hindu and Buddhist death practices. In relation to the funeral, Langer observes both that “it is customary and expected that Brahmins are paid for their services” 1 and that “Buddhist monks replaced brahmins in their ritual function.” 2 Naturally it follows, then, that “any offering to the monks could be viewed in the light of a symbolic payment for the monks’ services at the funeral” 3 since “a monk who comes to a house for chanting or preaching never leaves empty-handed and there seems to be an unspoken understanding about which services require more substantial donations that others.” 4 Interestingly, but unmentioned by Langer, another Buddhist scholar independently notes this as well and this scholar also happens to be one that Langer herself relies on in this study. Gregory Schopen’s archaeological evidence of monastic practices, particularly those having to do with funeral practices, is a major resource for Langer’s section on Buddhist funerals. In regard to the monastic-lay relationship I found that, like Langer, Schopen refers to the “client relationship between monks and lay-brothers” 5 when monks are compelled to meet the request of laity, and the “exchange relationship” 6 when funeral duties are performed and the order receives something in return.

Langer makes an important finding when she noticed two symptoms systemic in the community which, Langer discovered, arise from the Sri Lankan confusion over the status of the dead. One is linguistic and the other ritualistic. The terms prēta and preta in Sanskrit, peta in Pali, and prētayā in Sinhalese are all from a similar etymological root but are used with interchangeable meanings of ghost, troublesome ghost (resembling a poltergeist), deceased, hungry ghost, deceased relative who is a hungry ghost, intermediate being, and ancestor. 7 Langer spends a great deal of time on this and it remains a tricky task to tease out all of the elements leading to this “conflation,” as she calls it. “On a conscious level prēta/peta is understood as a particular being belonging to a specific gati [realm], but on a practical, emotional level, the categories of ‘hungry ghost’ and ‘ancestor’ merge.” 8 The ritualistic symptom of the confusion over the status of the dead shows up with various contradictory customs Langer observed around the funeral, some in an attempt to keep the dead from returning and some to have them return. Digging holes along the funeral procession path is an example of the former, and a verbalised invitation and laying out of the deceased’s belongings is an example of the latter. About this issue she concludes: “In Sri Lanka (and Thailand) there appears to be a gap between the official Theravada doctrine of instantaneous rebirth, and popular practices which seem to suggest the belief in a liminal period after death.” 9 Apparently the result of confusion over what happens after death, Langer successfully shows this to be a Hindu remnant of spirit belief and/or a lingering pre-Buddhist custom of ancestor worship.

Langer’s dissertation is the result of a great deal of textual and ethnographic effort. It adds greatly to the study of Buddhism, death and dying and the Buddhist perspectives on such. It is an excellent resource and I have already used it personally in a recent research paper entitled “Tension Between the Buddhist Monastic Order and Buddhist Laity at Funerals Degrading the Holding of Monastic Precepts.” There are some weaknesses, however: excessive meanderings regarding Hindu practices beyond proving a relevant point related to Buddhist practices; repeated sections of content; difficult usage of foreign terminology lacking clear definition and her inconsistent interchanging of terms that may or may not be synonymous. On the other hand, I might be bold enough to say that her concise exposition on the Buddhist view of consciousness at death from the Abhidhamma might be unparalleled in Western scholarship. Langer also makes very useful connections that can be applied to modern times. In one Sutta commentary the idea that wrong view at death will detrimentally affect rebirth is presented, and there is the caution that even if one has developed sophistication in one’s views throughout one’s life, at death one can instinctively revert to the views of childhood. She suggests that this is a textual tool to both warn and encourage the practitioner. In the context of palliative care, a personal affinity of mine, there is a precedent at the bedside of patients reverting to their original tongue when approaching death. Here we see that principles in the ancient texts can be found to hold true here and now, and can serve to provide insight here and now, in a practical and powerful way. Langer’s findings regarding remnants of Hindu thought and practice in Buddhism are strong and deserve even more attention. The gist of this lingering pre-Buddhist influence on death activities is well captured by Holt: “Buddhist interpretations of death did not originate in an historical vacuum. Conceptions of…the prescribed behaviour relating to the dead…were modified adaptations of prevailing Brāhmaņical patterns of belief. This is especially apparent when we examine the beliefs and practices of the early Buddhist...” 10

Endnotes

1) Langer, 2007. 87
2) Ibid. 183
3) Ibid. 87
4) Ibid. 154
5) Schopen, c1997. (a) 74
6) Schopen, c2004. (b) 96
7) Langer, 2007. 150
8) Ibid. 159
9) Ibid. 82
10) Holt, 1981. 1

Sources

Holt, J.C. 1981. Assisting the Dead by Venerating the Living: Merit Transfer in the Early Buddhist Tradition, Numen XXVIII, 1-28.

Langer, Rita. 2007. Buddhist Rituals of Death and Rebirth: Contemporary Sri Lankan Practice and its Origins; London ; New York: Routledge

Schopen, Gregory; c1997. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press a) The Ritual Obligations and Donor Roles of Monks in the Pali Vinaya, 72-85.

Schopen, Gregory; c2004. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: Still more papers on Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press
b) Deaths, Funerals, and the Division of property in a Monastic Code, 91-121.