There is neither immortality nor unified annotation about death. To most people in the world, death is regarded as a matter of horror and awe. But the Tibetan people do not think quite hat way.

The funeral is the last imperative step of a life, and a ceremony for people to lament the dead. Funeral customs reflect the political, religious, economic and cultural aspects of a society, and are a constituent of folk culture.

On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the nonparallel natural and cultural environment has incubated the same nonparallel funeral customs. The Tibetan funeral customs have been greatly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Religion. Here exist almost all kinds of funeral ways, namely, inhumation, incineration, stupa burial, celestial burial, water burial, cliff burial, tree burial, stone coffin burial and multi-person burial, etc, each having its special existent time, special existent time, scope and sense. Inhumation is said to be the earliest practice in Tibet. The stupa burial and incineration are regarded as noble ways; the former in particular was only for the successive Dalai Lamas and Panchan Lamas as well as a few grand Living Buddhas, i.e. being buried in gold and silver stupas; while the latter is for ordinary shamen and noblemen. However, in the forested regions such as Nyingchi Prefecture, incineration is also practiced by the ordinary people. The water burial is mainly for the poor, dead of disease and children, etc. Yet above all, the celestial burial is the most accepted and practiced funeral practice in Tibet.

The Celestial Burial

There are two different explanations about the origin of the celestial burial. One says it is purely native; while another says in came from India or Central Asia. However it is generally recognized that its evolvement has gone through two phases. The first one is the period of so-called aboriginal celestial burial, when people unconsciously left the dead body in the wild. Till the period between the 11th and 12the century, influenced by the Buddhist doctrines, the celestial burial had gradually started with rituals, hence started the period of so-termed ritualized celestial burial. Since then the rituals have become all the more regularized. Now it is predominantly the most prevailing funeral practice among all in Tibet.

A complete set of funeral procedures should start while the person抯 life still lingers. The family members would feed the dying person with a tablet made of rare Tibetan herbs mixed with burnt ashes of the drapery, hair and nails of Living Buddhas, which is said to be able to help the dying person cut off some intrinsic qi, i.e. the human appetites, and let the soul leave peacefully. Meanwhile Lamas would be commissioned to chant scripture, so as to help the dying person to get rid of anguish and fear at the last moments. Notably the ladies and children generally are not allowed to approach the dying person, because it is said that will disturb his mood and influence his smooth transmigration.