Meaning and Rituals of Death: An Insight into Selected Ethnic and Religious Communities of Bangladesh

Tóm tắt

Bangladesh has been a place of religious harmony for centuries. The vast displays of cultural and religious properties on show here have been shaped over the last 5,000 years, following numerous political regimes including those of the Pal (Buddhist), Sen (Hindu), Mughal (Muslim), and British (Christian). The centuries-long peaceful coexistence of different religious groups and sects has led Bangladesh to be a place of varied religious beliefs and practices, associated with the life cycle (Rights de Passage: birth, maturity and death) of people from various ethnic communities living in different geographical and ecological locations. The lives of the local people have also been intertwined with various tangible and intangible sacred cultural spaces, where people from different religions interact with each other and perform various activities related to their death. Different religious and cultural groups have different interpretations about the sacred practices (stories, rites, customs, beliefs, and rituals) associated with death and funeral. Thus, the objective of this paper is to see the variations of death and funeral-rituals and practices among a number of specific ethnic and religious communities of Bangladesh, from a broader global context and from the perspective of anthropology of death.