Dying the Good Death - The Pilgrimage to Die in India's Holy City

Dying the Good Death - The Pilgrimage to Die in India's Holy City

Product ID: 16692

Regular price
$34.95
Sale price
$34.95
Regular price
Sold out
Unit price
per 
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Shipping Note: This item usually arrives at your doorstep in 10-15 days

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