Sky Burial - Purpose and Meaning

Purpose and Meaning

"Sky burial and open cremation may initially appear grotesque for Westerners, especially if they have not reflected on their own burial practice. For Tibetan Buddhists, sky burial and cremation are templates of instructional teaching on the impermanence of life."

Jhator is considered an act of generosity on the part of the deceased, since the deceased and his/her surviving relatives are providing food to sustain living beings. Generosity and compassion for all beings are important virtues or paramita in Buddhism. Although some observers have suggested that jhator is also meant to unite the deceased person with the sky or sacred realm, this does not seem consistent with most of the knowledgeable commentary and eyewitness reports, which indicate that Tibetans believe that at this point life has completely left the body and the body contains nothing more than simple flesh.

The government of the People's Republic of China, which has controlled Tibet since 1950, prohibited the practice (which it considered barbaric) in the 1960s but started to allow it again in the 1980s. People who do not know the deceased usually do not observe it, and direct photography is considered unethical, offensive and is generally forbidden.

A jhator was filmed, with permission from the family, for Frederique Darragon's documentary Secret Towers of the Himalayas, which aired on the Science Channel in Fall 2008. The camera work was deliberately careful to never show the body itself, while documenting the procedure, birds, and tools.