Talk:Major Steps in Hindu Funeral Cremation Ceremony:Preparing and Lighting the Pyre

By Vishal Agarwal

A stack of wood is piled on a demarcated area (either a platform, or an area of loose dirt whose boundary is marked with bricks etc.) that has been purified by sprinkling of Ganga water and chanting of mantras. The bier is placed on the pyre, and several more logs of wood are placed over it with the chanting of mantras, and pouring of ghee. In the Vedic scriptures therefore, the descriptions prescribe digging of a rectangular cavity in the earth as if offering the body into a fire altar. The corpse and the fuel (firewood, ghee etc.) are placed in that cavity for the cremation. The cavity symbolized a fire altar pit. In modern times however, the firewood is placed on a raised rectangular platform. The body is placed on a layer of wood, and is then covered with more wood before being set afire.

The son goes around the pyre thrice, and then lights it. The cremation must be performed before the next sunset. If the person died very close to the sunset, the cremation is performed next morning, in the early hours after the sunrise. Sometime after the pyre has been lit, the son takes a wooden shaft to crack open the skull of the burning corpse so as to release the soul from the crown of the head.