Lokale Lamas und Touristen Blick auf eine Herde von Geier nach einem Himmel Beerdigung in Sertar County, Ganzi tibetischen autonomen Präfektur, Southwest China Sichua
Local lamas and tourists look at a flock of vultures after a sky burial in Sertar county, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest Chinas Sichuan Province, 7 July 2013. Sky burial is a funerary practice in the Chinese provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, and Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia proper where in a human corpse is incised in certain locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements and animals, especially predatory birds such as vultures. The majority of Tibetans and many Mongolians adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it or nature may cause it to decompose. The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible. In much of Tibet and Qinghai, the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and, due to the scarcity of fuel and timber, sky burials were typically more practical than the traditional Buddhist practice of cremation.
