Funerary rite
(antyeshthi samskara) performed on the twelfth day after death, which
symbolically represents the one-year anniversary of the death.
In this rite, the departed person is trans formed from a
potentially dangerous wandering spirit (pret) to a benevolent ancestral spirit
(pitr) (pitr).
Each day for ten days following a person’s death, mourn ers
leave a ball of cooked grain (pinda) for the departed spirit.
Gradually the ten pindas “construct” a new body for the
departed person.
Then sapindikarana is performed on the twelfth day.
A large pinda, representing the departed, and three smaller
ones are collected, repre senting the departed’s father, grandfa ther, and
great-grandfather.
The rite’s central moment comes when the departed’s pinda is
divided into three parts, one part is mixed with each of the other three
pindas, and finally all three pindas are combined into one.
At the moment the three pindas are combined, the departed is
believed to have become one (sapindi) with his ancestors, and to have been
transformed from a wander ing spirit into an ancestor as well.
This twelfth day rite is the last of the funerary rites
performed on a strict timetable.
Mourners may wait for years before per forming the final
rite of asthi-visarjana, in which bone and ashes from the dead person’s
cremation pyre are immersed in a sacred river, although with the advent of
better transportation this is sometimes now performed before the twelfth day
rites.
In addition, people still perform annual memorial rites for
the deceased.
For an excellent account of this rite, see David M. Knipe,
“Sapindikarana: The Hindu Rite of Entry into Heaven,” in Frank E. Reynolds and
Earle H. Waugh (eds.), Religious Encounters With Death, 1977.
