Author: Christopher Justice
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications
Year: 1997
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170305578
Description
Dying the Good Death is a unique ethnography, the first to focus on the experiences of dying at the end of the life cycle. In a region of northern India, some people at the end of their lives leave their villages and travel to the Hindu holy city of Kashi to die.
These pilgrims expect that by dying in Kashi they will obtain the spiritual reward of moksha-liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Based on fieldwork conducted in Kashi’s hospices or mansions of liberation, Christopher Justice introduces us to a number of dying individuals and their families, providing rich and evocative descriptions of their remarkable experiences.
The social contexts of these experiences are explored through descriptions of the families who provide care and the priests who chant the name of god twenty-four hours a day. The book also has clear implications for the potential ways in which we may choose to face the ends of our lives.
Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION
1. Perspectives on Death and Dying
2. Kashi and Studying Hinduism
3. The Historical Context of Dying in Kashi
4. The Kashi Labh Muktibhavan
5. Dying as Tradition
6. Dyiing in a Spiritual System
7. Dying and Morality
8. Physiological Dying
9. Good Death and the Dying Process
AFTERWORD
APPENDIX
GLOSSARY
NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX