Why sadhus are buried

Whatsapp Twitter Facebook Linkedin. Sign Up. Edit Profile. Subscribe Now. Your Subscription Plan Cancel Subscription. Home India News Entertainment. HT Insight. In this theatre of the non-human, Nirsu Ram Majhi, a local labourer, is loading his rusty bicycle with outsized bales of durva Bermuda grass , helencha water cress and kulekhara Hygrophila spinosa —edible and medicinal plants. Such are the gifts from the dead to the living—some of these, finding their way to religious rituals, will dissolve the boundaries between purity and pollution.

In Hinduism, certain categories of corpses are not cremated, but immersed or buried. A muscular man in his mids, his eyes seem haunted. Everything he says sounds sad. His father was also a Dom, he says, a Hindu caste dwelling on the margins of society, one of weavers and basket-makers, blacksmiths and masons and, infamously, of gravediggers, cremators and executioners.

We walk with Mullick, gingerly stepping through the wet grass. People are buried everywhere. In stark difference to Christian and Muslim graveyards, nothing is marked. Mullick takes us to a fresh grave. People have left behind little markers: bits of saffron cloth, some candle boxes, slippers, empty bottles of rose water, tinctures of medicine.

The pain cuts deep. It touches us too. These adults are mostly from the Dalit, Vaishnav, Hela and Kabirpanthi communities. For Dalits, burying their dead has long been a way of resisting the crushing authority of Brahminical Hinduism. At times, burial is simply the cheaper option. They bury the body with a lot of salt. It helps melt the flesh off the bones," Mullick says. The number of Bengali Hindu adults being buried has steadily decreased over the years, but Shee recalls an incident when a retired, upper caste, Central government employee in his 70s came to Topsia with his grandson, scouting for a site for his own burial.

The Muraripukur Hindu Burial Ground—at around 3 acres, the smallest of the three sites—is tucked away at the back of Ramakanta Sen Lane, shielded from the cacophonous thoroughfares of North Kolkata. Right outside is the quaintly-named Lily Biscuit Factory—maker of a product once part of middle-class Kolkata, now shuttered forever. The burial ground was probably established sometime in the late 19th century, as a place for burying the bodies of infants. Over time, it has expanded to include both the young and the old.

Stationed in a terracotta red office with the white-collar reticence that is a hallmark of government officials in the state, his anxiety filters through a veneer of polite composure. Used mostly to talking with bereaved families, his interaction with us is uneasy—a tension that is settled only after we have had our first cup of tea.

Maiti is aware that sadhus and sanyasis must be buried, and that the practice is also prevalent among Dalit communities from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who have made Kolkata their home, particularly the Rauts and the Helas. We are taken for a walk around the site by Asharfi Dom, a septuagenarian gravedigger who was born at this burial ground and has raised his family here. He carries with him the silence of his workplace. And ascetics, cross-legged for eternity? According to the Ancient Hindu tradition, there are four phases of human life, also called as Ashramas.

They are Brahmacharyam bachelor student , Grihastha After marriage with family , Vaanaprastham Retirement after completing his household responsibilities , and Sanyasam in the later part of their life. There is no rule that a person has to follow through this cycle to attain Sanyasa. Great souls who renounce worldly pleasures can attain Sanyasa in brahmacharya phase itself to dedicate the rest of their lives towards spiritual advancement.

The greatest example of true Sanyasi is Jagadguru Adi Sankaracharya, who attained sanyasa at the age of 8 years. There are some duties and responsibilities for leading a life of Sanyasi.