Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

04 April  2020

TO BURY OR TO CREMATE?

I opened my mail after discussing the wonderful ways in which Truth leads those who value truth. During the discussion I said that  the Truth we discover comes with us and that it connects us to the truth discovered by others. I gave as example ‘cyberspace’ where other minds have registered their truth. As per my experience the truth recorded by others comes to me almost instantaneously. I said to the Hindu Tamil audience that this was the closest to Aahayam / sky which is also an element as per the wisdom inherited by us. As per that Vedham /philosophy – Panja-poothangal / Five elements preserve our truth at various stages and in various combinations. Out of those – the Sky carries the Absolute Energy. At that level it is Absolute and leads us. I said that to my mind, that was how information from cyberspace came to me from the depth that I have taken my mind to. Those whose input is at the hearsay level would access at information registered at that level.

Then when I opened the mail I noticed Twitter mail regarding Alan Keenan’s Tweet. I went into it and found the directions to Mangala Samaraweera’s posting with the message ‘Thank you, GMOA. A sane and rational voice amidst the hysteria.’:

There was a controversy over the cremation of the Muslim victim of Coronavirus. Hence the importance of the above clarification.

As per the above communication – the final decision was with the Director General of Health Services. Every Sri Lankan in official position has the duty to ensure that the provisions of the Sri Lankan Constitution are not breached in interpreting the laws. As per article 14(1)(e ) of the Sri Lankan Constitution:

[Every citizen is entitled to – the freedom, either by himself or in association with others, and either in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching;]

As per Wikipedia ‘Cremation of the body is strictly forbidden in Islam’

Hence if the relevant legislation does permit the Director General to make the decision – the understanding is that it should not be in breach of the Fundamental Rights of the citizen as spelt out by the Constitution. The Cremation was therefore a denial of the rights of a Muslim.

Burial is a common process to Christians and Muslims. Other common values include Gabriel and Resurrection. Wikipedia reports:

[Ibn al-Nafis wrote the Theologus Autodidactus as a defense of "the system of Islam and the Muslims' doctrines on the missions of Prophets, the religious laws, the resurrection of the body, and the transitoriness of the world." The book presents rational arguments for bodily resurrection and the immortality of the human soul, using both demonstrative reasoning and material from the hadith corpus as forms of evidence. Later Islamic scholars viewed this work as a response to Avicenna's metaphysical argument on spiritual resurrection (as opposed to bodily resurrection), which was earlier criticized by al-Ghazali ]

Also [In the Qur'an, barzakh is the intermediate state for the soul, until the day of resurrection.]

Burial would help mentally project resurrection in the same form. Cremation would oppose such a projection.

The President, as the head of the Government failed to prevent this breach of fundamental rights.

Neither Buddhism nor Hinduism preach Resurrection. Both preach rebirth. This requires us to completely forget the old form. As stated above our truth will come with us.