the fire of knowledge (AGNI) vanquished all of his
previous learning, and in September 1966 cosmos
and consciousness became concentrated in him as
the destroyer, SHIVA. Foundation devotees believe
that the holy man’s experience ushered in the era
of Shiva Kalpa, the period of Lord Shiva’s omnipo-
tent imagination.
In 1969, the holy man took up residence in
San Francisco. One year later, the foundation was
established there and centers began to be created
around the world. The purpose of the foundation
is to break through religious, national, and racial
boundaries to create a harmonious relationship
of nations. The foundation reveres Shiva as the
creator of all things, the destroyer of ignorance,
and the force that moves each person to strive for
perfection.
The foundation, still headquartered in San
Francisco, has over 5,000 members in the United
States. In 1997 it claimed 25,000 members
worldwide. It has 21 centers in 10 countries,
including India, England, France, the Neth-
erlands, and Australia. Audio CDs of Sunday
meetings and other events are sold through the
foundation archives.
funeral rites
Indian anyeshti (funeral rites or final sacraments)
are formally outlined in the Dharmashastra law
books and other texts, including a special sec-
tion of Garuda Purana. Actual practice, however,
frequently diverges from the textual tradition.
There are rituals to be performed before
death, those that relate to the disposition of the
body, those that take place after death to prevent
the soul from taking on the form of a ghost, and
those done later when the person is honored as
an ancestor. A person will almost always be cre-
mated at death, unless he or she is an infant or a
mendicant, in which case the body is most often
buried. Part of the postdeath ritual involves
placing the body on a bier, in either a sitting or
a lying position, to be carried to the cremation
ground by relatives or taken in a bullock cart or
other conveyance.
At least part of this trip will be accompanied
by ritual singing. The body is then lain on the
funeral wood, always facing southward, as the
south is the direction of death. The eldest son
is the lay officiant at the cremation. After cir-
cumambulating the body, he pours oblations of
water on it, cracks the skull to release the soul,
and lights the funeral pyre. The funeral party will
most often wait until the body is almost com-
pletely consumed.
Once the cremation is complete the funeral
party returns home to do expiations, using man-
tras and other rituals, in order to ward off “death
pollution” or the effects of being in proximity
to a corpse. BRAHMINS in particular observe a
period of 10 days when no one in the family is
allowed to leave the house after a death. After
a day or two the eldest son will return to the
burning grounds to retrieve the ashes and bones.
The ashes are usually put into an urn and either
buried or poured into a sacred river such as the
Ganges or Cauvery, thus guaranteeing liberation
or heaven for the deceased. Often an 11-day
ritual is performed to provide a spiritual body
for the deceased, in order to prevent the deceased
from becoming a ghost and wandering homeless
for eternity. Later, the shraddha or ancestor rites
are performed yearly to sustain the person in the
other world.
Brahminical mendicants or SADHUS are buried
in a special rite. The body is placed in a deep
hole in yogic, sitting position. It is then covered
in salt from bottom to chin, and the whole is
covered with earth. Saints in India are usually
buried in tombs. Often the tomb’s covering
protrudes above ground so that the constituted
SAMADHI or grave site becomes a place of holy
pilgrimage.K 154 funeral rites