Antya Karma

Antya Karma, “the last rites”

Antya karma means the final rites. It is the whole run of sacred acts from the moment death draws near, through the cremation, to the ten days of piṇḍa-dāna (offering of rice balls) that follow. The Garuḍa Purāṇa, in its Dharma Khaṇḍa (Chapters 1–5 and 34–37), gives this as the most important part of karma-kāṇḍa, the teaching on rites. These rites decide whether the departed jīva (living being) goes the path of moksha (liberation) or wanders as a preta (a departed one without a body). Done with faith and care, they build a new subtle body for the preta and open the gate of the southern path to Yamaloka.

The Agni Purāṇa gives the last rites in the teaching of Pushkara to Paraśurāma (Chapters 157–158). It tells how the body is bathed, clothed, honoured with flowers and burned whole on the pyre, how the son places fire at his father’s face, how the relatives offer jalāñjali (water in the joined palms) uttering the name and gotra of the departed, how the piṇḍas are given for ten days and the bones gathered, and how the family returns home and lives until purity is restored. It also says which children are buried and not burned, and to whom no water is offered.

Before death

Lying on sacred earth

When death comes near and the body grows weak, the dying person is taken off the bed. He is laid on clean earth (bhūmi) smeared with cow-dung and sprinkled with sesame seeds (tila). Earth is the mother of all and receives the departing jīva. Lifting the person from a raised bed to the ground is held to be essential, so that the prāṇa (life breath) leaves from a holy base. The Dharma Khaṇḍa says this in Chapter 2.

Tulasī and the name of Nārāyaṇa

Tulasī leaves are put in the mouth of the dying person. The name of Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa is chanted without a break in his hearing. It may be the Ashṭākshara (eight-syllable mantra, Oṃ Namo Nārāyaṇāya) or any name of Bhagavān Vishṇu. The Dharma Khaṇḍa teaches that a person who hears the name of Bhagavān Hari at the moment of death is freed from all the pāpa (sin) he has gathered, whatever his earlier conduct. Relatives and the brāhmaṇas who are present keep up the recitation of the Gāyatrī and of Vishṇu stotras through the whole time of dying. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2)

Prāyaścitta before death

For the sick who are near death, the Dharma Khaṇḍa gives several prāyaścitta vratas (rites of atonement) as purification before death. They are:

• Kṛcchra vrata. A fast of twelve days. For four days the person eats only in the morning, for four days only in the evening, and for four days only what is given without asking.
• Atikṛcchra. A harder form. The person eats only once a day for twelve days.
• Taptakṛcchra. Hot water, hot milk, hot ghee and hot air are taken, each by itself, for three days.
• Sāntapana. Cow urine, cow dung, cow milk, cow curd, cow ghee and kuśa water are taken, each on its own day in turn, and then a full fast follows.

Kept with sincerity, these vratas burn away the pāpa that would otherwise drag the jīva to naraka. They also make the body ready for the passage, so that the dying person leaves in a pure state. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 4)

The Vaitaraṇī cow

Of all the dānas given before death, the gift of a cow, called the Vaitaraṇī cow, is the chief. The Vaitaraṇī river, which the preta must cross after death, is fierce, full of blood and bones, and terrible to see. The jīva that crosses holding the tail of a cow given with the right mantras is carried safely over. The cow should be black if possible. The giver says this mantra:

Vaitaraṇyā mahāghorāyāṃ magnasya mama tāraṇe / eshā dattā mayā dhenu tvaṃ me trāhi sadā sadā

It means: “To carry me across the terrible Vaitaraṇī, in which I am drowning, I have given this cow. May you protect me always.”

The full mantra calls the cow the form of all the devatās. Brahmā is in the hooves, Vishṇu in the middle of the body, Śiva in the horns, Sarasvatī in the tail, the Saptarshis in the hair, and the four Vedas in the legs. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 47)

The Daśa-dānas: the ten great gifts

The Dharma Khaṇḍa gives ten mahā-dānas (great gifts). They are given at the time of death, or in the expectation of death, for the good of the preta on its journey.

1. Go-dāna. A cow. It is the best of all dānas.
2. Bhūmi-dāna. Land.
3. Tila-dāna. Sesame seeds. Tila destroys pāpa through its śakti (power).
4. Hiraṇya-dāna. Gold.
5. Ājya-dāna. Clarified butter (ghee).
6. Vāsa-dāna. Clothing.
7. Dhānya-dāna. Grain.
8. Guḍa-dāna. Jaggery.
9. Rajata-dāna. Silver.
10. Lavaṇa-dāna. Salt.

Beyond these ten there is the ashṭa-pada-dāna, eight more gifts: a bed (śayyā), an umbrella (chatra), footwear (pādukā), a lamp (dīpa), a bronze vessel, a water vessel, a robe, and a seat. They further equip the departed for the road through Yama-mārga (the way of Yama).

The śayyā-dāna, the gift of a complete bed with mattress, pillow and coverings, is described in special detail. The preta is held to rest on this bed in the time before it reaches Yamaloka. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 4 and 34)

At the moment of death

The Dharma Khaṇḍa describes dying in close detail. When the prāṇa begins to leave, the senses are drawn back: sight fails, hearing fades, touch is lost. The jīva is still wrapped in the subtle body (sūkshma-śarīra). It goes out through one of the openings of the body, according to its karma:

• Through the crown of the head (brahmarandhra) for those bound for the higher lokas.
• Through the mouth, the ears, the eyes or the nose for those of mixed karma.
• Through the lower openings for those heavy with adharma.

Leaving through the brahmarandhra is the most auspicious. It belongs to the path of light (devayāna). Whichever opening it uses, the jīva is at once cut off from the gross body (sthūla-śarīra). In its new preta form it becomes the size of a thumb (aṅgushṭha-mātra), and it feels sharp hunger, thirst and confusion. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2)

After death: the śmaśāna rites

Preparing the body

The body is bathed, smeared with sesame paste, wrapped in white cloth and garlanded. The chief mourner is the eldest son or the nearest male relative. He shaves his head as a sign of grief (śoka). The body is carried to the śmaśāna (cremation ground) on a bier of bamboo or wood, and the name of Bhagavān Hari is chanted all along the way. No one may weep during the procession, because the sound of wailing is said to hurt the preta.

The antyeshṭi rite

At the śmaśāna the chief mourner walks round the pyre clockwise (pradakshiṇā) before it is lit. Agni is called as the bearer of the offering. Just as Agni carries the havya (offering) to the devatās in a yajña, so Agni carries the body of the dead back to the elements it came from. The chief mourner lights the mouth of the pyre. While the body burns, verses of the Yajurveda are recited. The Dharma Khaṇḍa gives particular Vedic mantras for this. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 6)

Asthi-sañcayana

After the pyre has cooled, usually on the third day, the bones and ashes are gathered (asthi-sañcayana), wrapped in cloth and sunk in a holy river. The best rivers are the Gaṅgā, the Sarayū, the Godāvarī, or any mahā-tīrtha. Sinking the bones in Gaṅgā water purifies the departed at once, whatever pāpa he had gathered. Such is the śakti of Gaṅgā. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5)

The Daśagātra: building the preta’s body

Ten days of piṇḍa-dāna

From the day of death, for ten days in a row, the chief mourner gives piṇḍa-dāna every day. He offers balls of rice or sesame mixed with water. These offerings build the new subtle body of the preta, part by part. The Dharma Khaṇḍa says plainly that without the daily offering the preta has no body and suffers, naked and in pain. Each day’s piṇḍa builds one part:

By the tenth day the preta body is whole. It has all its limbs and senses and can now go through the journey on Yama-mārga. The hunger and thirst put in on the tenth day are the very pains the preta feels on the road. Only the śrāddha offerings that the descendants keep making can ease them. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5)

The Ekādaśa and Dvādaśa śrāddhas

On the eleventh day a śrāddha is done, with brāhmaṇa-bhojana (the feeding of brāhmaṇas), to give the preta food for the journey. On the twelfth day the sapiṇḍīkaraṇa is done. This rite joins the preta formally to the company of the pitṛs (ancestors). (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5)

Pañcaka-śānti

If death comes in the pañcaka, the last five nakshatras of the lunar month (Dhanishṭhā, Śatabhishā, Pūrva Bhādrapada, Uttara Bhādrapada and Revatī), one more rite is done. It is called pañcaka-śānti. Five figures are made from kuśa grass or flour. They stand for five more persons who are held to be at risk of dying after a death in the pañcaka. Each figure is treated as a body and given the full antya karma: it is wrapped in cloth, given piṇḍa, and burned with the real body or after it. This rite takes away the harm of the inauspicious time. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 4 and 35)

Āśauca: the period of impurity

The death of a sapiṇḍa relative, one who shares the same gotra line within seven generations, brings a time of āśauca (ritual impurity) on the family. The Dharma Khaṇḍa follows the rules already set in the Ācāra Khaṇḍa (Chapters 106–107). There are ten days of āśauca for the nearest kin (parents, brothers and sisters, children), and shorter periods for more distant relatives. During āśauca no śrāddha, yajña or auspicious rite may be done. The purity of the household is restored only when the period ends, by bathing (snāna) and other cleansing acts. (Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5)

Per Agni Purāṇa

In the Agni Purāṇa, Pushkara teaches Paraśurāma the rules of purity after a death, “in the manner told by Manu and the other ṛshis”, and within them the rites for the dead (Chapters 157–158).

The cremation

The body is bathed, covered with a new cloth, honoured with flowers and taken to the śmaśāna (cremation ground). It is burned naked, and not even a little of the body is to be left unburned. A sagotra, one of the same gotra, lifts the body and places it on the pyre. One who had established the sacred fires (agnyādhāna) is burned according to rule with the three fires; one who had not, but had received the upanayana, with one fire, the āhavanīya; ordinary people are burned with common fire. The son places fire at the face of his father’s body, reciting the mantra that begins asmāt and ends lokāya svāhā (the text gives it in short).

The relatives circle the pyre apasavya (from right to left), bathe in their clothes (sacela-snāna) and each give three jalāñjalis for the preta (the departed one) (Chapter 157).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

The water offering

Uttering the name and gotra of the preta, the relatives each give an offering of water. Jalāñjali is given in the same way on the death of the maternal grandfather, the ācārya and the like. Giving water to friends, married daughters and sisters, a sister’s son, the ṛtviks and the father-in-law is left to one’s wish. The duty of giving water to a married daughter belongs both to her husband and to her father. The son gives jalāñjali to his father for ten days, reciting the mantra beginning apa naḥ śuśucad agham.

No jalāñjali is given to one who abandoned his own dharma and made his birth useless, to one born of varṇa-saṅkara (mixing of varṇas), to a parivrājaka (wandering sannyāsī), or to those who killed themselves by poison and the like in a way the śāstra does not allow: for them the udaka-kriyā (water rite) has ceased. Nor is water given to a woman who took refuge with pāshaṇḍas (those outside the Veda) and killed her husband; for her there is no āśauca either.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

Children

A child of two years is not cremated but buried in the earth, and no water offering is made for him. But if the child had received the nāmakaraṇa (naming rite) and had cut his teeth, cremation and the gift of water are to be done. For a child who dies before teething, and for a child lost in miscarriage, there is no cremation and no jalāñjali (Chapter 157).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

The piṇḍas of the ten days

For ten days one piṇḍa is given each day (Chapter 157). Chapter 158 gives the number of piṇḍas by varṇa: ten for a brāhmaṇa, eleven for a kshatriya, fifteen for a vaiśya and thirty for a śūdra. A son, a daughter or anyone else should give the piṇḍas to the dead just as a son would. He who first performed the cremation must do the rites for the ten days; and if a man of another gotra cremates anyone, he himself must give the piṇḍa and water for ten days (Chapter 166). If there is no one entitled, a brahmacārī himself should give the piṇḍa and the jalāñjali.

On the tenth day, after giving the piṇḍa, one becomes pure by having a shave. One smears mustard and sesame on the body, plunges into water to bathe, and puts on new clothes (Chapter 157).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158, 166

Returning home

Having done the cremation and returned home, with mind controlled, one stands at the door, chews two neem leaves, does ācamana (sipping water), and touches fire, water, cow-dung and mustard. Then, first placing the foot on a stone, one slowly enters the house (Chapter 158); Chapter 157 adds that one throws akshatas (unbroken rice) into the fire before entering. From that day the relatives must not eat salt or meat. All sleep on the ground, apart from everyone, and, having bathed, they eat sparingly of food bought that day, not cooked at home.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

Gathering the bones

Asthi-sañcaya, the gathering of the bones, is done by brāhmaṇas, kshatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras on the fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth days respectively (Chapter 158). Chapter 157 gives the fourth day after the cremation, and says that after it touching the body is permitted. When a very old man dies who no longer knew purity and impurity, the āśauca is only three nights: the bones are gathered on the second day, water is given on the third, and śrāddha is done on the fourth.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

Carrying the dead

When people of his own jāti are present, a brāhmaṇa’s body must not be carried by śūdras; nor a śūdra’s by a brāhmaṇa, for that brings fault to both (Chapter 157). One who carries the body of one who is not his sapiṇḍa becomes pure by sacela-snāna, touching fire and eating ghee; if he eats the food of that family, he is pure only after ten days, and if he neither eats their food nor lives in that house, in one day. A brāhmaṇa who follows a śūdra’s body is pure in three days.

The Purāṇa gives the phala (fruit) of serving the dead who have no kin. Brāhmaṇas who carry the body of a brāhmaṇa without kin gain the fruit of a yajña at every step, and are pure by bathing alone (Chapter 158). One who carries such a body and takes it to the antyeshṭi (last rites) attains svarga, and one who gives wood for the last rites of a preta without kin gains victory in battle (Chapter 157).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

The sapiṇḍīkaraṇa and the year

In the sapiṇḍīkaraṇa śrāddha one gives a separate piṇḍa to the preta and three to the pitṛs of three generations, four in all. Having honoured the piṇḍas and given dāna, reciting the mantras Pṛthivī te pātram and Ye samānāḥ, one divides the preta’s piṇḍa into three and mixes the parts, in order, into the piṇḍas of the father, the grandfather and the great-grandfather. Before that, the preta’s arghya vessels are mixed with those of the father and the others. For a śūdra this śrāddha is done without mantras, and for women it is done in the same way. All the monthly śrāddhas of the year may be completed on the twelfth day, with an extra piṇḍa if an intercalary month falls in that year. For one year a pot with food and water is given for the preta; after the year, śrāddha is done for the pitṛs every year.

Pushkara says that time moves without ceasing, so the rites must surely be done: whether the departed one has become a devatā or is in naraka, he surely receives the śrāddha there. The pitṛs who have gone before cannot be counted, though one might count the grains of sand of the Gaṅgā in the rainy season. And one who weeps for the dead does no good either to himself or to the departed.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 157

Āśauca

Among sapiṇḍas, kin down to the seventh generation from the root ancestor, the āśauca of death is ten days for brāhmaṇas, eleven for kshatriyas, fifteen for vaiśyas and one month for śūdras. For one who does not keep the agnihotra, it begins at once when a sapiṇḍa dies; for one who keeps the agnihotra, only after the cremation. For a sapiṇḍa who dies in another country, purity comes by sacela-snāna. Chapter 157 says there is no āśauca for those who die by lightning or by a weapon in battle, nor for yatis, those under dīkshā for a yajña and those carrying out the king’s command; Chapter 158 gives three days of āśauca to the sapiṇḍas of one killed by lightning. Even if news of the death of a father or mother comes after a year, one must do sacela-snāna, fast, and perform the rites for the departed according to rule (Chapter 158).

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158

Water rite for a living patita

The Agni Purāṇa also uses the water rite of the dead to cast out a patita (one fallen from dharma) while he is still alive. His sapiṇḍas and relatives, on a censured day at the evening sandhyā, before the family, the ṛtvijas and the gurus, perform the udaka-kriyā for him; then, as is done for a preta, they have a servant woman kick over a pot filled with water, and keep āśauca for one day. When he has performed his prāyaścitta, the relatives bathe with him in a sacred river and throw a new pot filled with water into the water.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 170

Sources

• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–5 and 34–37
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2 (laying on earth, Tulasī and the name of Nārāyaṇa, the moment of death)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 4 (prāyaścitta vratas, pañcaka-śānti, dānas)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 5 (asthi-sañcayana, Daśagātra, Ekādaśa and Dvādaśa śrāddhas, āśauca)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 6 (the antyeshṭi rite)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 34 (the Daśa-dānas and the śayyā-dāna)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 35 (pañcaka-śānti)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Dharma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 47 (the Vaitaraṇī cow)
• Garuḍa Purāṇa, Ācāra Khaṇḍa, Chapters 106–107 (rules of āśauca)
• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 157–158, 166, 170