Re: [PMJS] Re: Thirteenth century burials, coffins, urns, mounds, smoke, gra...

[ING...@aol.com]

I apologize for not having the time to search for greater details, but from all that I have read, both cremation and burial were practiced in the Heian period.  There were two cremation sites near the capital; one was Toribeno, in the south-east on the other side of the Kamo River, and the other somewhere in the north-west. The good families would have had their relatives cremated.  The really grand families, like the Fujiwara nobles, had the remains collected and deposited at special temples.  I recall that many remains of the great are, for example, at Mt. Koya.

 

Provincial noble families apparently also had burial tombs.

 

The poor most likely would have resorted to burial in the ground.  The abandoning of corpses along highways and the river banks seems to have marked times of disaster (starvation and smallpox).

 

I. J. Parker

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[William Londo]

A slight clarification here. There are memorial markers/stupas on Mt.
Koya for famous figures from throughout Japanese history, but it's not
clear whether there are many remains of *Heian era* figures there. Mt.
Koya doesn't become a pilgrimage destination of any significance until
nearly 1100, and even then it probably would have been only one of a
number of places where the remains of a deceased might have been
interred--and a rather unlikely one at that, given the multi-day journey
required. I guess the provenance of the Mt. Koya graveyard needs proper
study, but my sense is that it seems older than it really is.
___________________________
William Londo Ph.D.



grbounce-guhZswUAAABrg6gy759VnZYK9L5ZK7Pc=wfl=myreal...@googlegroups.com
wrote:

>
> I apologize for not having the time to search for greater details, but
> from all that I have read, both cremation and burial were practiced in
> the Heian period. There were two cremation sites near the capital; one
> was Toribeno, in the south-east on the other side of the Kamo River, and
> the other somewhere in the north-west. The good families would have had
> their relatives cremated. The really grand families, like the Fujiwara
> nobles, had the remains collected and deposited at special temples. I
> recall that many remains of the great are, for example, at Mt. Koya.
>
> Provincial noble families apparently also had burial tombs.
>
> The poor most likely would have resorted to burial in the ground. The
> abandoning of corpses along highways and the river banks seems to have
> marked times of disaster (starvation and smallpox).
>
> I. J. Parker
>

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