Method
Cremation
Overview
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a corpse through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre is an ancient tradition. Starting in the 19th century, cremation was introduced or reintroduced into other parts of the world. In modern times, cremation is commonly carried out with a closed furnace (cremator), at a crematorium.
Cremation leaves behind an average of 2.4 kg (5.3 lb) of remains known as ashes or cremains. This is not all ash but includes unburnt fragments of bone mineral, which are commonly ground into powder. They are inorganic and inert, and thus do not constitute a health risk and may be buried, interred in a memorial site, retained by relatives or scattered in various ways.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Cremation is discussed.
This, then, remains our unsolved problem, inasmuch as the economic motives at the basis of the present endeavour to reintroduce cremation were certainly not operative at the time of its origin. With reference to the origin of cremation, only psychological probabilities are possible to us.
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
names the idea; opens on it
While the fire was blazing, every one, with a reverent heart, pulled off his upper garment, and threw it, with his feather-fan and umbrella, from a distance into the midst of the flames, to assist the burning. When the cremation was over, they collected and preserved the bones, and proceeded to erect a tope. Fâ-hien had not arrived in time to see the distinguished Shaman alive, and only saw his burial.
Confucius, Chinese literature
names the idea; opens on it
Again, the substance which is formed by the liquefaction of new and tender flesh when air is present, if inflated and encased in liquid so as to form bubbles, which separately are invisible owing to their small size, but when collected are of a bulk which is visible, and have a white colour arising out of the generation of foam—all this decomposition of tender flesh when intermingled with air is termed by us white…
Plato, Timaeus
states what it is
Thus, the daily agitation or flowing of water prevents putrefaction; winds prevent the air from being pestilent; corn turned about and shaken in granaries continues clean: in short, everything which is externally agitated will with difficulty rot internally. We must not omit that union of the parts of bodies which is the principal cause of induration and desiccation.
Francis Bacon, Novum organum
states what it is
Hence it is not possible for anything to rest in one term during the whole of the preceding time, and afterwards in the last instant of that time to be in the other term. But this is possible in movement: because to be moved in any whole time, is not to be in the same disposition in every instant of that time.
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
Philosophers who discussed Cremation
Related ideas
- Freemasonry
- Anglicanism
- Holy See
- Hinduism
- Herodotus
- Homer
- Hindus
- Halakha
- Hasidic Judaism
- India
- Indian religions
- Japan
- Judaism
- Jainism
- London
- Middle Ages
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Muslims
- Methodism
- Nazi Germany
- Orthodox Judaism
- Precedent
- Paganism
- Lutheranism
Place in the tradition
Part of Cultural relativism.