Sky burial is a ritual practice common in Tibet that involves placing the body of the deceased in a high ground (mountain) and expose it ritually, especially to birds of prey. Tibet (Tibetan: བོད་, Bod, pronounced pö in Lhasa dialect; Chinese: 西藏, pinyin: XÄ«zàng; older spelling Thibet) is a region in Central Asia and the home of the Tibetan people. ... Orders Accipitriformes     Cathartidae     Pandionidae     Accipitridae     Sagittariidae Falconiformes     Falconidae A bird of prey or raptor is a bird that hunts its food, especially one that preys on mammals or other birds. ...

Some people think this kind of burial is used because in some religious views, birds of prey are carriers of soul to heaven. But, Tibetans are buddhists, they do not believe in the soul/heaven as occidental people, they believe in reincarnation,they believe that the soul and spirit of each person just borrows the body, and they have no problem with birds of prey eating a death body, beause the soul is already in a different body, the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the body. They do not bury thier dead because the harsh Tibetan terrain makes the ground too hard to dig into, and with fuel and timber scarce, the sky burial is more practical. A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived between approximately 566 and 486 BCE in India. ... Reincarnation, as a doctrine, holds the notion that ones personality, spirit, soul, true self, I (not to be confused with the Ego as defined by psychology) or critical parts of these returns to the material world after physical death to be reborn in a new body. ... Orders Accipitriformes     Cathartidae     Pandionidae     Accipitridae     Sagittariidae Falconiformes     Falconidae A bird of prey or raptor is a bird that hunts its food, especially one that preys on mammals or other birds. ...

See also

• Towers of Silence

One of the two Towers of Silence no longer in use on the outskirts of the city of Yazd, Iran. ...

External link

• Tibetan Sky Burial
• Witness to a Tibetan Sky-Burial
• Photos of a sky burial. Warning: Graphic and gory! Photos reside on Ogrish.com.