From 2009... Good-death Beliefs and Cognition in Himalayan Hinduist Pilgrimage

Good-death Beliefs and Cognition in Himalayan Pilgrimage. Andreas Nordin. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 21 (2009) 402-436. https://www.academia.edu/21820655

Abstract: This article discusses the notions of a good death associated with Hindu pilgrimages in the Nepalese and Tibetan Himalayas. Using theories and concepts from the cognitive anthropology of religion and from the cognitive science of religion—particularly the cultural epidemiological method—my objective is to explain why certain systems of thought and behaviour are favoured over others in cultural transmission. My thesis is that the apprehension of contagion and/or contamination, combined with prevailing cultural representations, exerts selective pressure on the formation of beliefs about good death. Pilgrimage sites are associated with intuitions about contagious and contaminating contact, avert the pollution of death, and provide links to supernatural agents.

Keywords: Hindu pilgrimage, cognition, death, good-death beliefs

We can't handle the truth... From the paper, pp 427-8:

In a summary of pilgrimage sites in the Hindu textual tradition Saraswati refers to such scriptures as the Dharmashastra, in which suicide at pilgrimage sites such as Prayag, Gangasagr och Kashi was morally sanctioned under certain condition (1983: 24). Saraswati’s presentation of the dharmashastra prescribes various forms of sanctioned and meritorious pilgrim suicides for soteriological purposes:

Following are the meritorious modes of suicides: (1) starving; (2) covering oneself with dry cowdung cakes and setting it on fire and consuming oneself therein; (3) burying oneself in snow; (4) to plunge into the water at the sangam, enumerate one’s sins and pray till alligators come and devour the man; (5) hanging with the head down in the stream and feet up and drinking the waters of Ganga; (6) cut one’s own throat, or cutting off one’s flesh and giving it as food to birds; (7) by falling head-long from a cliff, at Amarkantaka, for instance (1983: 24).

Clearly, several sources confi rm that religious suicide at pilgrimage sites has been sanctioned.

This, however, was denied by most of the pilgrims interviewed in this study. Theological norms that sanctioned ritual suicide were rejected by most of the pilgrims who were travelling to Muktinath, Pasupatunath and Mt. Kailash and Manasarovar. The pilgrims’ aversion to suicide in a context that was otherwise declared to be positive may exemplify a “theological correctness-effect” (Barrett 1999) or, more aptly, the tendency towards theological incorrectness (Slone 2004). That is, this aversion may be strengthened by fast, “online-reasoning” (Barrett 1999) associated with social exchange intuitions, rather than a slow matching of theological reflection with religious sources.

Quotations from the dharmashastra were shown to some pilgrims as an example of a scripture that did sanction suicide at pilgrimage sites. But the pilgrims generally had a strong antipathy for suicide and rarely hesitated to condemn it. Some of the pilgrims who saw the excerpts from the dharmashastra claimed they were false even though they were specially trained in the theology of their tradition.