Chapter 13 Cremation and burial
The custom of burying the dead
Burying the dead in earthen mounds and graves is a very old custom in India. It still exists among several low-ranked castes. In the age of ancient Kalibangan of the Ganganagar district in northwestern Rajasthan, it was a common practice in parts of western Rajasthan and adjacent areas. Four to five thousand years ago. It is an interesting possibility, that Bhangis, and other bottom ranked castes with the custom of burying their dead in the ground, might have at least some of their roots in the pre-Vedic culture of the Harappan civilization.
Cremation and burial are both ancient customs
Fire has also been used in Hindu worship since ancient times. It was an important part of the religious rites of the early Indo-Aryan groups, who settled in northwestern India more than three thousand years ago. How the fire sacrifices should be carried out was prescribed in great detail in the Vedic hymns of the Indo-Aryan priests and later on by the Brahmins.
As fire was so important in the savarn Hindu religion, burning the dead bodies of human beings became a natural custom to all those Indians who lived close to Brahmin Hinduism. Most likely, it was a custom the forefathers of the Indo-Aryan settlers had adopted already when moving around as pastorals in the inner parts of Euroasia, many thousands of years ago.
The use of fire among Hindus
The villagers used three different types of ritual fire called havan, dhup and jot.
Havan was used by Brahmins presiding over ritual ceremonies as pandits. It was a sacrificial fire. A major ingredient poured into the havan is butteroil (ghee). Tan Dan has seen a highly variable amount of ghee being sacrificed into havans, depending on the importance of the occasion and the wealth of the villagers conducting the rite. Sometimes not more than a quarter of a kilo was used, but in big havans as much as hundreds of kilos of nutritious ghee was used at the Chelana village itself. In big cities even bigger amounts of ghee may go into smoke as appetizers for the gods, as Tan Dan put it.
Savarn Hindus of non-Brahmin castes used to light a jot fire instead of a havan, when they were on their own, as only a Brahmin was allowed to light a havan fire.
The difference between a jot and a havan was mainly that much less ingrediences were used in the jot fire.
The only savarn Hindu caste in the village, who did not bother about religious fires such as jot, were the potters of the Matigar Kumar caste, Tan Dan told. He thought they had enough of fires and smoke in their daily work as potters.
It was a part of their caste profession to burn their clay pots in a big heap of combustible material. At Chelana they used to build these heaps in the the open space in between their houses. They piled up dry thorny bush from wasteland areas around the village. Guar stalk, leavings from cowsheds, twigs and branches from trees etc. were added. In the middle they put the clay pots they had formed. The way they burnt these big heaps in the middle of their house yards, with the smoke in big clouds penetrating the whole mohalla, choking and suffocating people, was most unpleasant. That is probably why, they were not very keen on sacrificial fires, Tan Dan thought.
Dhup was also a small ritual fire that could do, when it was not possible to light a havan. The ingredients sacrificed into the fire were comparatively few. Only a little ghee was sprinkled into the dhup fire, even less than in a jot. There was not much smoke coming out of this fire.
Ritual fire and the untouchable castes
Neither jot nor dhup fires were much used in worship among Bhangis and Bhambis and Bavris. However, to some extent dhup was used also among these groups. For example, at the time of the noratra festivities, when they worshipped the Jagthamba godess. Noratra is the nine days fast celebrated twice a year at Chelana and the rest of northwestern India.
Chelana communities cremating their dead
Fire is much used in worship, but its most important use among the Hindus is at the time of cremation.
At Chelana the savarn Hindus used two different cremation grounds. The Rajputs cremated their deceased relatives at the open space near the village pond close to the cenatophs of the Chelana Thakurs. The Muslim had their idgah nearby, and in recent decades also a small cooperative godown had been built close to the Rajput cremation ground, which had a higher feudal status than the cremation ground used by most villagers. It was situated at a creek near the southern outskirts of the village about 250 m south of the bend where the bus turns towards Jalagarh. The creek is close to the temple ruins of the now disappeared Chelani village that (probably) existed here before the present Chelana village was built one kilometre to the north. About one thousand years ago.
Getting cremated in a sitting position
The common practice was to lay the one who had died on a bamboo ladder used as a bier. The corpse was cremated in that position.
Among the Bhanvria gotra of the Jat caste there was a tradition of keeping the dead person in a palanquin at the time of cremation. He was kept in a sitting position with the help of ropes. To some extent also families of other castes in western Rajasthan keep the dead person sitting in a palanquin, but it is unusual. The family who cremates in that way is expected to arrange a big after death-meal.
In the 1960s Girdhari Bhanvria's mother died and Tan Dan joined the funeral procession to the cremation ground near the creek. Girdhari was a Jat farmer living at his dhani homestead in a field outside the village settlement. The Bhanwaria gotra of the Jats always carried their deceased relatives in a sitting position to the cremation ground. They were sometimes burnt in that position, too.
In the early 1970s there was a funeral procession of Seva Baba Jat of the Bhanvria gotra. His body was taken in procession to the cremation ground to the south of the village from his house in the Jat mohalla of the village settlement. The procession passed the Baniya mohalla. Dholi drummer kept drumming all the way from the home of the Jat family to the cremation ground.
Seva Baba's body was kept in a sitting position in his funeral palanquin. All who came to see him for the last time brought a pair of coconut. Therefore his palanquin became full of coconuts.
When the funeral procession had reached half way to the cremation ground, they made a halt. It was the last place, where they paid homage to Seva Ram. His four sons greeted their dead father with folded hands.
Castes burying their dead at Chelana
Some low ranked castes in western Rajasthan did not cremate their dead, and did not use much fire in worship, either. Their deviations from these basic customs may indicate a different cultural origin. They had graveyards.
At Chelana only three castes buried their dead: Bhambi, Bhangi and Nat. Also the Muslims buried their dead. These communities had their graveyards at different places outside the village settlement area.
In Tan Dan's childhood the Bhangis had their graveyard in the wasteland area to the east of the village pond. Around 1960 the Bhangis moved their graveyard from there to a place on the barren land to the north of the village. In the late 1950s the new Bhangi mohalla was built by the village panchayat with money from a Government welfare scheme. These houses were situated in the northern edge of the village, too. Both the living and the dead moved at about the same time.
The graveyard of the Muslims were up to the 1960s in a shrub jungle field close to the village settlement area. When the Chelana village hospital was built there in the 1960s, the Muslims shifted their grave yard further away.
The two medium ranked castes of Sirvi and Bisnoi also buried their dead. There were no families of these castes at Chelana, but in other villages in the same area of western Rajasthan.The Bishnoi had the custom of burying their dead elders in front of their house within the walls of their compound. (Cf. Hutton, 1946.)
However, the Mochi shoemakers cremate their dead. They also use the jot type of fire in their rituals to a much larger extent than other untouchable Shudras. In these respects the Mochis resemble the savarn Hindus more than the bottom ranked castes of Bhambi and Bhangi.
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