Buddhist funeral

• Offering of cloth on behalf of the dead (mataka-vastra-puja): Before a cremation or a burial (depends on the will of the dead person or his/her relatives), at the deceased's home or cemetery, the funeral's presiding monastics are offered a white cloth to be subsequently stitched into monastic robes. During this ceremony, the following verse which was, according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, spoken by god Sakka after the passing away of the Buddha, is recited:

In addition, as relatives pour water from a vessel to an overflowing cup to symbolize the giving of merit to the deceased, the following verses are recited:

• Preaching for the benefit of the dead (mataka-bana): Within a week after the funeral (usually on the third day after), a monastic returns to the deceased's home to provide an appropriate hour-long sermon for surviving relatives and neighbors. The sermon is usually held on the sixth day after the death; family, friends and neighbours are often treated to a meal afterwards.[9]
• Offering in the name of the dead (mataka-dana): Made three months after the funeral and then annually afterwards, the deceased's survivors hold an almsgiving on their behalf.[1]

"Exposure of the Corpse" (Lushizang, 露屍葬) is the practice of placing the body of the deceased in an open area instead of using coffins or sarcophagi. In the Indian tradition, the practice of exposing the corpse included putting the body in the forest or sinking it underwater.[15] Originating from India, medieval Chinese monks also practiced exposing the corpse in the woods but so far no textual evidence supports the practice of water burial. In addition, cave burial (Shishi yiku 石室瘞窟) was also a type of Lushizang in medieval China.[16]

The point of exposing the corpse was to offer the body to hungry birds and beasts. After that, the remains were collected. There were three ways to dispose of the remains:

• Collect the remains from the woods, bury them or place them in a pagoda
• Cremate the remains, then bury the ashes or place them in a pagoda
• Cremate the remains, then distribute the ashes in the woods or water

Starting from the third century AD, Chinese monks used caves as the resting place for the deceased. This funeral practice (石室瘞窟) may have been influenced by Central Asian practices.[17] Compared to forest burial, cave burial was less direct than exposure.

Before medieval times, the word "stone cave" (Shishi, 石室) can either mean the government library or suggest the main room in an ancestral temple (Zongmiao宗廟). To make Buddhist funerary caves, one can adopt the three methods:

• Use natural caves or grottos
• Make slight changes to existing grottos
• Pile up stones to make new caves

To achieve the goal of giving one's body to the animals, most caves and grottos were open. The few exceptions include the north cliff of Longmen wanfo gou (龍門萬佛溝).[18] Generally, monks used the sitting position and practiced dhuta (Toutuo, 頭陀). These caves were reusable and most of them were found in Chang'an and Longmen. Dunhuang and Sichuan also have such caves.

Chinese monks began the practice of "forest burial" (Linzang, 林葬) from the fifth century CE. Reputedly the famous monk of the Eastern Jin, Huiyuan, was the first in China to practice forest burial.

This practice might have been very popular in the sixth century CE. According to the Book of Chen (陳書), even lay people attempted to adopt this funerary method. The term "Cool Grove" (Shituolin 屍陀林) was applied to describe the exposing place, or used as a general term for this practice.

After the sixth century CE, the number of documents recording forest burial increased. In Daoxuan's Biographies of Eminent Monks (Xugaosenzhuan 繼高僧傳), there were many stories with such descriptions. According to Daoxuan and other epitaphs of monks, there were two types of monks who practiced forest burial:[19]

• the monks of the Three Stages Sect. This sect took both monks and lay practitioners including female believers. The most famous places for the Three Stages Sect were Zhongnan Mountains and Baoshan.
• other monks of different sects, usually from the Chang’an area. They focused on Chan learning and valued lineage. Those monks practiced in temples such as Chang’an Yanxing Temple, Chang’an Shengguang Temple and Chang’an Qingchan Temple.

While mummification does occur as a funeral custom in a variety of Buddhist traditions, it is not a common practice; cremation is more common. Many Mahayana Buddhist monks noted in their last testaments a desire for their students to bury them sitting in a lotus posture, put into a vessel full of coal, wood, paper and/or lime and surrounded by bricks, and be exhumed after approximately three years.[20] The preserved bodies would be painted with paints and adorned with gold. Many were so respected that they were preserved by their students. They were called "Corporeal Bodhisattvas", similar to that of the Roman Catholic incorruptibles. Many were destroyed during the cultural revolution in China, some were preserved, such as Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism and Kim Kiaokak, a Korean Buddhist monk revered as a manifestation of Ksitigarbha, and some have been discovered recently: one such was the Venerable Tzu Hang in Taiwan; another was the Venerable Yuet Kai in Hong Kong.

Other notable examples of Buddhist mummification are Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov in Siberia, Loung Pordaeng in Thailand, and a 15th-century Tibetan monk from Northern India examined by Victor Mair in the documentary The Mystery of the Tibetan Mummy. While the documentary suggests that the monk may have consumed poisonous matters on purpose, there is no proof of such practice for any of the mentioned persons, so the poisonous substances occasionally found in their remains may have been applied to their corpses by their followers.