In a remarkable closely-guarded tradition of Tibetan sky burials, bodies are chopped up and fed to the vultures. This practice is termed as ‘sky burials’. Sky burials are a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia.
The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. This means they do not see a need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel, so they dispose of it through a sky burial.
According to Buddhist teaching, this makes it easier for the soul of the deceased to move on.
Some stories suggest the body parts are left in the Tower of Silence for a year, exposed to the elements and birds – men and women are placed in different sections.
Then when only the bones are left, the pieces are broken up with mallets, ground with tsampa (barley flour with tea and yak butter, or milk), and given to the crows and hawks that have waited for the vultures to depart.
The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible – this donation of human flesh to the vultures is considered virtuous because it saves the lives of small animals that the vultures might otherwise capture for food.
The sky burial is considered virtuous because it saves the lives of small animals that the vultures might otherwise capture for food.
