Brahmanism at the time of the Buddha taught several contrasting, even conflicting ideas about what happens to a person after they die; that they go to heaven, that they are dispersed among the elements, that they become plants or that they join their ancestors, the fathers (
pitamaha), in some kind of shadowy afterlife. All these notions are mentioned in the Vedas. The last of them was probably the most widely accepted as it is the one mentioned most frequently in the Tipitaka. During the Buddha’s time there seems to have been only the beginning of an idea that one’s postmortem state, whatever it might be, was determined by one’s moral or immoral behavior while alive. Everyone, it w
as assumed, went to the world of the fathers. Some days after the funeral the oldest son, directed by a brahman, performed a ceremony called the
sraddha (Pali
saddha, A.V,273; D.I,97) in which small balls of dough (
pinda) and other food were offered to the departed person as this invocation was made: ‘May this offering benefit our ancestors who are dead and gone. May our ancestors dead and gone enjoy this offering.’(A.V,269). The belief was that this food would be received by the departed and help to sustain them. Gifts were then given to the brahmans directing the ceremony. Only a son could perform the saddha rite, which was one of the main reasons people so strongly desired to have a son (A.III,,43). Performing this ceremony was one of ‘the five offerings’ (
pancabalim) every person was expected to make (A.II,68). Evidence of the enduring nature of Indian spirituality is that this ceremony, little changed, is still done today by Hindus. If you visit the Vishnupada Temple in Gaya you can see this ceremony being done. In the last decade or so Hindu pilgrims have started doing it at Bodh Gaya.
As with many other contemporary beliefs, the Buddha ethicized Brahmanical ideas about the afterlife, and shifted the practices associated with them from the material to the psychological. He reinterpreted the ‘fathers’ (
pita) as the ‘hungry spirits’ (
peta) and said that only greedy, immoral or wicked people might get reborn as such unhappy beings (A.I,155). A good and kindly person, he said, would probably be reborn as a human or in heaven, rather than the world of the fathers. When the brahman Janussoni asked if it were really possible for the departed to receive and benefit from the material offerings made to them the Buddha replied that this could only happen if they had been reborn as a hungry spirit (A.V,269).
However, it seems unlikely that the Buddha would have believed the rather primitive notion that material offerings could actually be conveyed to another dimension. More likely the Buddha was using skillful means, adopting or taking into account the questioner’s standpoint in order to speak to him or her in terms they could understand. In this case he probably did so because although he would not have accepted that material things can be conveyed to another world, he could see that Janussoni’s desire to do so was based on good intentions -love, gratitude and concern for his departed ancestors. When the Buddha was addressing his instructed disciples he would say that the best way they could give their departed relatives something that would benefit them would be to lead a good and moral life here and now. Once he said: ‘If a monk should wish, “Those departed relatives and ancestors of mine who I recall with a calm mind, may they enjoy great fruit and benefit,” then he should be one who is filled with virtue, who spends time in solitude, dedicated to meditation and calmness of mind.’ (A.V,132). The Buddha’s idea seems to have been that if you wish to give happiness to your departed loved ones lead a life of kindness and integrity.
In keeping with this interpretation the
Kathavatthu specifically denies that the departed can receive or benefit from material things offered to them (Kv. XX,4).
In traditional Buddhists countries today people will do good deeds, usually making offerings to monks, and then in a simple ceremony dedicate the merit they have created to their departed loved ones. Although people are told by monks and often believe that they actually ‘transfer the merit’ to their departed loved ones this is a misunderstanding of Buddhist doctrine. See
http://www.buddhisma2z.com/ under Merit and Transference of Merit. The picture shows a supposed ‘merit-making’ ceremony.
Are animals capable of feeling an affinity with and gratitude towards people? The Jatakas and even some stories from the Tipitaka suggest they do (see http://www.buddhisma2z/content.php?id=481). But of course, they’re just ‘legends.’ However, the evidence ‘on the ground’ suggests they can. Have a look at this rather moving and charming video.
I took this second picture in the Cambodian gallery at Musse Guimet. Rarely have I ever seen artifacts more beautifully organized and presented. Every exhibit was a masterpiece but two that moved me most were these Buddha heads. With what skill and loving care did the Cambodian sculptors capture and then depict the Buddha’s smiling confidence and inner peace. 
by around the beginning of the first millennium it was starting to be considered appropriate for upper-class women and those in royal households to veil their faces. This was the beginning of what is called purdah, the exclusion of women from public life, a trend that became more widespread in India with the introduction of Islam in the 13th century. Village women in India will still pull their sari over their face in the presence of males not related to them (see picture).
as assumed, went to the world of the fathers. Some days after the funeral the oldest son, directed by a brahman, performed a ceremony called the sraddha (Pali saddha, A.V,273; D.I,97) in which small balls of dough (pinda) and other food were offered to the departed person as this invocation was made: ‘May this offering benefit our ancestors who are dead and gone. May our ancestors dead and gone enjoy this offering.’(A.V,269). The belief was that this food would be received by the departed and help to sustain them. Gifts were then given to the brahmans directing the ceremony. Only a son could perform the saddha rite, which was one of the main reasons people so strongly desired to have a son (A.III,,43). Performing this ceremony was one of ‘the five offerings’ (pancabalim) every person was expected to make (A.II,68). Evidence of the enduring nature of Indian spirituality is that this ceremony, little changed, is still done today by Hindus. If you visit the Vishnupada Temple in Gaya you can see this ceremony being done. In the last decade or so Hindu pilgrims have started doing it at Bodh Gaya.
Some of my readers will have heard of Venerable Analayo, a German monk who embodies a rare balance of impeccable scholarship and solid meditation practice. Although Analayo is most well-known for his book Satipatthana; The Direct Path to Realization he has over the last few years, also produced a steady stream of extremely interesting articles on various aspects on the Dhamma. Unfortunately many of these articles are published in academic journals where they are not easily available to the average Buddhist reader. The good news is that now Ven. Analayo will be conducting an E-course on Buddhism. The main purpose of the course will be to introduce central themes of Buddhist thought from an historical-critical perspective through the medium of a comparative study of the early discourses. Extracts from the Madhyama Agama preserved in Chinese will be made available in English translation to participants, so that these can be compared with their Pāli counterparts, which mostly, but not exclusively, are found in the Majjhima Nikāya. The course will follow the order of the discourses in the Madhyama Agama so as to give the participants an opportunity for a first-hand impression of this collection, so far not available in translation in any European language. The coverage of the first chapters of this collection during the course held in 2011 will alternate between brief surveys of some discourses and in-depth studies of other discourses (see below for the discourses selected for this term). Anyone taking an intelligent interest in the Dhamma is bound to benefit from this course. Online registration starts on the 15 February 2011. For more information go to http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/index.php?id=121&L=0 
sson Collage, Baroda, Harvard, and Leningrad. His Bhagwan Buddha (1940) remains to this day the most widely-read account of the Buddha’s life in Marathi. Two of his other great achievements were his editions of the Visuddhimaga and of the Subhasitaratanakosa which he did together with V. V. Gokhale. My own teacher, Ven. Matiwella Sangharatana, knew D. D. quite well and I distinctly recall him saying that he was one of the few Indian Buddhists he knew ‘who could think’ which might be a bit unfair. As a thinker Dharmanand blended Buddhist ethics, Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of truth and non-violence, and the ideals of socialism. He exchanged letters with the Mahatma, worked for his causes, and most extraordinarily, ended his life in the traditional Jain manner by voluntary starving himself to death at Sevagram ashram in 1947. The process took 30 days. Arguably, no Indian scholar’s life has been as exemplary as Dharmanand’s, or has approximated as closely the nobility and saintliness of the Mahatma’s. Despite his mastery of several languages, Dharmanand chose to write mainly in Marathi because of his strong region-specific commitment. Consequently, very few today even in India are familiar with his copious output in Buddhist studies, and fewer still with his contribution to social and political thought. By translating and marshalling his most significant writings, Meera Kosambi, shows the manifold dimensions of Dharmanand’s personality, and the profoundly moral character of his intellectual journeys. Her Introduction also contextualizes the life, career, and achievement of modern India’s greatest scholar-savants. The book includes for the first time a translation of Kosambi’s long autobiographical essay Nivedan.
The first is of the statue after Vogel dug it up, and the second just before he built the structure around it and in which it sits to this day (note the freshly-mortared bricks behind it).
