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Dying.

Among middle and upper thars when an individual is thought to be in danger of dying, various ceremonies may be performed. These include dana , offerings, sometimes very substantial ones, to a Brahman. These ceremonies and their accompanying offerings are made in the hope of healing or, if that fails, of facilitating dying and the fate of the individual after death.

When death is considered to be imminent, the dying person and his or her family have an option as to where the death will take place. This should be either on the cheli , the ground floor of the house (considered for this and other purposes to be outside the house), or at one of the sets of steps, ghats , descending into the river.[54] It is said that most people prefer to die on the cheli of their own home, and that the great majority do so. An Ayurvedic physician is often in attendance, and when he decides that death is imminent, an area purified with cow dung and scattered with black barley grain is prepared. The dying person is placed on the purified area with his or her head facing toward the south, the direction of Yama's kingdom. Shoots of certain plants (tulasi , a variety of basil, and kusa [Sanskrit kusa ] grass, Demostachya bipinnata ) are placed under the body.

There is an emphasis on Visnu/Narayana[*] at the time of dying.[55] The tulasi leaves placed under the person's body represent him.[56] Water touched to a salagrama , a representation of Visnu[*] , is flicked into the dying person's mouth.


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He or she is reminded (and this is done even if the person appears to be unconscious) to repeat the name of Narayana[*] over and over again.

If the person is dying at home, a vessel containing pure water, representing a tirtha , an area usually associated with a river or other body of water that has power to give merit, is placed near his or her feet. At what is presumed to be the moment of death, an attendant splashes water from the bowl on the person's feet, which may also be placed into the bowl. Some of the water is also poured into his or her umbilicus. When someone dies at the river, the feet, or sometimes the entire lower half of the body, may be plunged into the river. This act, represented during dying at home by the action with the "tirtha water," is said to be to prevent the vital principle, the prana , which leaves the body at the moment of death, from leaving it inauspiciously through one of its lower openings.[57]


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