The ancient tradition of “Sky Burial,” upheld mainly by Buddhists of Tibet and parts of Mongolia, involves a macabre ritual in which the bodies of the recently deceased are left on a mountaintop to be eaten by vultures and other scavengers... and that tradition is still in practice today.
[Warning: graphic images ahead]
Photo: John Hill
The practice may have originated with the religious order of Drigung Kagyu, which teaches that a dead body should not be preserved but returned to nature. It also stems from a more practical concern: the harsh climate and rocky terrain of the high mountains makes burial or cremation difficult.
Photo: FishOil at en.wikipedia
As documented in the 12th century Tibetan Book of the Dead, the ritual indicates how the deceased should be prepared for sky burial: religious officials known as “body-breakers” carve the corpse up in a specific manner, then place it at dawn on a specially prepared “charnel ground” and leave it there for three days. The vultures are believed by some to be angelic creatures, who carry the person's sprit to Heaven.
Once the vultures have eaten the best parts, the skeletal remains are often ground up into a paste for other scavengers. In some cases, some of the bones would also be used as ritual tools and decorations.