Religion: Death and Body Disposal

Death is an inevitable part of human life. For many, it is feared. Throughout history, religion has attempted to explain death and speculate on what happens afterward, so it is less frightening. After death has occurred, the body must be disposed of. Because of the various explanations for the afterlife and the sacredness of a human body after death, different methods of disposal are used in different religious traditions.

The most common form of corpse disposal, in Western religions, is burial, usually in a cemetery. Burial is used by the major Abrahmic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

This practice of burial is based on examples from the Torah, such as a passage, “And [God] buried him (Moses) in the depression in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor.” Moses was buried by God, and the high status of Moses makes this way of disposal desirable. Christianity and Islam carried on this custom from Judaism, with some changes.


In Christianity, as with Judaism, the bodies are put in caskets to be placed in the ground. Grave markers for Christianity reflect the importance of the resurrection of Christ to their faith, as see on the one to the right. This is also part of the use of caskets. Most Christians believe in Judgment Day, when the God-devoted will be rewarded and the sinners punished. One aspect of this is the resurrection of the dead, therefore the bodies are still important after death.The Islamic dead are buried, but not in caskets. The body goes through a cleansing and ritual process, is covered by a shroud, and placed in the ground.

Although Muslims also believe in a form of the Last Judgment, they also discourage elaborate displays. Grave markers, if any, should be simple and not ornate. Islam teaches submission to God and excessive use of money on lavish items, such as a casket or expensive grave marker, is looked down upon. That encourages pleasure in earthly materials instead of devotion to God. Giving to the poor is also a major part of Islam, and wasting money with caskets and markers for the dead, who are gone from this earth, causes less to go to the poor.

In most Eastern religions, the body does not hold the same sacredness as in the Abrahmic religions. Saṃsāra, a concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, is the cycle of reincarnation (portrayed by a wheel in Buddhism, see above). Because of this cycle, each human body is not very important; after death, the soul of the person is gone and it is just an empty shell. All of these religions use cremation as the most common method of corpse disposal.

Sikhs usually throw the ashes over a river. This comes from the story of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, depicted below. Guru Nanak would meditate down by the river everyday. One day, though he disappeared, and when he reappeared 3 days later, he was filled with the spirit of God and began to spread the word of Sikhism. Throwing the ashes over a river, therefore, associates them with Guru Nanak and the significance of the river in the founding of their religion.



Buddhists usually cremate as well, but there are exceptions. In the mountainous country of Tibet, wood is scarce and the ground is hard. Neither cremation or burial are plausible. The people of Tibet perform sky burials instead. They cut the corpse in certain locations and place it on a mountaintop, to be eaten by animals, especially vultures. A main concept of Buddhism is generosity and kindness to all living things. Because the body is no longer occupied, giving it up as food for other living beings is a final act of kindness for the person’s body.


Another type of disposal was performed by Zoroastrians, before the 20th century. They believed that after death, the body was contaminated by a demon that rushed in. In order for it not to spread this contaminant to the earth or fire by burial or cremation, they built “Towers of Silence,” buildings with a flat roof to place the bodies on. They would leave the bodies there until the bones were bleached, which would then be taken to disintegrate and wash out to the sea. The Zoroastrians do not believe in reincarnation, until the final renovation of the world, and do not believe in any significance of the body after death. The dead body only begins to decay and therefore must be gotten rid of to keep everything else from being polluted.