Some temples in Singapore have set aside parts of their buildings to house columbaria. In a way, what these temples are doing is part of community service, providing comfort to the living that their dead loved ones are well taken care of. Of course, the living pay a bomb to secure a niche for the dead in these temples, not unlike paying a premium to stay in a condominium (compared to public housing).
Still, the prevailing belief that many Chinese Singaporeans have is that when the dead "stay" in temples like these, they are protected by the gods of the temple. Compared to leaving the urns in public columbaria, the dead are like left out in the open. Furthermore, during major festivities, the temples would hold prayers and make offerings to the dead. If housed outside, the dead would have nothing to "eat" if family do not visit.
Of note, offerings made by the living to their dead relatives at columbaria within Buddhist temples need to observe Buddhist meal habits. That means that offerings brought into the Buddhist temple for the dead must be vegetarian. The rule that only vegetarian offerings are to be made is also made known on various signages placed around the columbarium.
By and large, the understanding in the Laws of Karma is that when the rules are disobeyed, the dead would probably be punished. The living therefore should know better than to bring non-vegetarian food in for prayers. Although there are helpers at the columbaria, they are often too jaded to tick off any transgressions because ugly quarrels may break out. Furthermore, the Chinese have the saying "having a meal puts you above the emperor" - a person at a meal should never be disturbed, even if the emperor asks to see the person. Therefore, few people would want to disturb family members when they come in for prayers and offer food to the dead, even if they bring in the wrong food.
Today, I saw the entire roast duck leg made as a "vegetarian" offering. And to make things even more exciting, there was roasted belly meat and char siew. Clearly, the living could read the signs telling them that only real vegetarian stuff should be used. Yet they flagrantly disregarded the request by the temple.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a way through which the living get even with the dead.
1 comment:
The reason for not having red meat is because it causes flatulence and it wouldn't be nice all those dead people farting in the temples; at least that's what I was told.
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