Sister Nivedita

“ The breathing grows hard, and the shadow falls. With gentle haste, the pallet is lifted and borne to a cleansed and consecrated spot in the verandah or open court—for it is thought cruel to the soul, that death should take place beneath a roof—and then, all but the dying man’s nearest and dearest having withdrawn from his presence, the voice of his eldest son, or maybe a younger brother, rises alone, throwing wide the gates of the earth-life, and calling upon those of eternity to open, to the knocking of that pilgrim who stands, feet shod and staff in hand, before them. ”

“ Thus, with perhaps a burning light or two, does the dead lie, in simple state, awaiting the coming of the heaters who will take him to the burning-ghât. And now and again, as one or another steals a look at the quiet face, the breath is sharply indrawn, to see the vexed record of the personal life erased, and the tortured lines smoothed out, while death establishes his throne securely, and writes, to end all things, his signature of peace. ”

“ A single blow is given; and it lies, there in the burning-ghât, broken into a thousand fragments.
Human hearts and the energy of sorrow must have their way. To them a time of stern abstinence, of going barefooted, and sleeping on straw, may be devoted. But wildness and bitterness of grief is waywardness at bottom. Sooner or later, sorrow must be accepted, and the duties of life resumed.
Gently and firmly, then, does the Mother-Church deal with her children, bidding them face the world before them in a spirit of peace. Only a widow is not asked to end her weeping. ”

“ Each soul must be led to step forth from the darkness of its grief. It must be soothed, purified, and reconciled to the world and to its own part in it. Such, at least, must have been the thought that led to the composing of one of the deepest and most significant benedictions in all the ancient liturgies of the world—the Hindu Prayer for the Re-sanctification of Labour after Mourning. ”

“ In this giving of the Viaticum after death, and its re-consecration at every shraddh, [1] the Hindu doctrine is implicit that no act by itself is of saving efficacy, that no rite or ceremony is more than symbolistic, and that all alike is to be determined and valued by its effect upon the mind. In concentration alone can we behold the truth. All that aids in the attainment of concentration is to be welcomed and practised.
One by one, at the burning-ghât, each who is present stands, to take leave of him, before the dead. ”

“ A moment goes by, until, as the first of the unmistakable signs of death makes its appearance, the long wild wail of the watching women breaks forth, unrestrained and unrestrainable, and the hours of mourning begin. ”

“ But some, whose distant kinship calls only for tenderness and respect, busy themselves silently to bring incense and flowers and Ganges water, that the memory of this death-hour may ever be associated in the minds of the living with thoughts of sanctity and worship. ”

“ It seems as if the doorways of the senses had been closed, that the spirit might retreat to the inner solitude. And the man lies there, wrapt in that generalised subconscious thought that made the music of his lifetime, his body remaining passive and inert. ”

“ The women hush their sobs, and bow their heads under their white veils, crowding together, in drooping submission, in some far corner, as the bearers of the dead come in—kinsmen, or neighbours, or even hirelings, as it may be—to carry him forth, feet foremost, from the home he will never enter more. ”

“ For those left behind, the remaining period of mourning is longer or shorter, according to the degree of the bereavement. It is expected, however, that self-control and the setting aside of “the grief that rises from illusion” will come soonest to those who are most saintly and scholarly. Hence amongst Brahmins, the severest mourning lasts for ten days only. ”

“ Now weariness leaves him, and his main purpose, self-recorded on lips and brow, shines forth before us. Or we catch an ancestral likeness, or a broad humanity, hitherto unsuspected, even as we see the contour of some receding landscape, generalised and softened. ”

“ Then they make ready food for the poor, and distribute alms. Thus striving to make their loss the beginning of a new life—of deeper consecration and saddened memory, it may be, but of all the old serenity and calm—they must set forth to join the wedded kindred. ”

“ In work, or at play, alone or amongst friends, he plucks them by the sleeve, or touches them on the shoulder, and they look into his face, and, smiling, die. It is very great, say the wise, to laugh and die! ”

“ The personal, for the nonce, has found release into the Impersonal. Life has been resumed into the Ocean of Life. Our vision henceforth of the beloved dead must be subjective alone. But there is nothing here that is fatal or eternal. ”

“ Of that which is dead, birth is certain.” “The body comes and goes.” “Never is the embodied soul destroyed.”
Many are the ceremonies to be performed at the burning-ghât. Amongst other things is the offering of the Viaticum, which, with Hindus, is given after death. A similar act of ministration will be repeated every time a requiem is performed for this man’s soul; and the sight of the sacramental food will carry the mind back swiftly to the heart-piercing grief of these moments, before the funeral-pyre ”

“ To her, it is well understood, her mourning is for life. But even the daughters of the dead must go back, if they are married, to their husbands’ homes. To these, three days of austerity are all that can be allowed. ”

“ It has become the custom in modern times, when august leaders of the civic life are gathered to their rest, that processions of their townsmen should follow the funeral bier, with hymns and the recitation of prayers. ”