The Tibet autonomous regional government has imposed protective rules to ban photography and media reports about a traditional Tibetan burial in an effort to better protect and show more respect to the special ritual that has prevailed in this remote region for more than 10 centuries, Xinhua reported yesterday.

 

According to the provisional administration's rules on the "celestial burial" released by the regional government, people are not allowed to gather around to watch the burial process; photos, video recording, and all other means of reporting on the traditional custom are also forbidden.

 

"Celestial burial" refers to the Tibetan tradition of feeding the dead to vultures and other birds of prey on mountaintops.

 

In most of Chinese cities, cremation has become a common burial practice although the people of Han nationality, the majority of the Chinese population, used to bury its dead in tombs in the past.

 

The provisional regulations, the third of their kind in the past two decades since 1985, underscored that celestial burials are a Tibetan custom strictly protected by national laws.

 

To better protect the vultures, creatures sacred to Tibetans, firearms, the blasting of mountains or quarrying around burial sites are also prohibited.

 

The rules also provide that those who die of poisoning or infectious diseases will not receive celestial burials.

 

The rules and regulations emphasize for the first time that celestial burial operators -- a special group of Tibetans who preside over the procedures -- should be esteemed as professionals, and no discrimination should be directed against them.

 

The autonomous regional government has made a decision to offer financial aid to senior burial operators and those who fall short of having sufficient income, said Tan Jiaming, an official in charge of social welfare with the regional civil affairs department.

 

Statistics from the department show that there are a total of 1,075 celestial burial sites and approximately 100 operators across Tibet.

 

About 80 percent of the Tibetans still choose celestial burials, acknowledged Basang Wangdu, director of the Nationality Research Institute of the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences.

 

Other Tibetan burial rites include cremation and water burial.

 

Celestial burial is closely related to the Buddhist practice in the Himalayan region. Buddhists believe in the recycling of life. The dead person's spirit is believed to leave the body upon death. His body is fed to the birds of prey as a final token of charity. 

 

In the two previous official orders, the autonomous regional government imposed punishment on uninvited outsiders participating in the rituals and photographers recording the burial.

 

The Tibetan regional government has removed nine quarries and stone processing plants from Sera Monastery -- a leading burial site on the northern outskirts of Lhasa, the regional capital -- in 2004, and earmarked one million yuan (some US$125,000) for its renovation.

 

Priority was given to the protection of local burial sites and monasteries during China's landmark construction of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the highest in the world.

 

The 1,956-km-railway stretching from the capital city of Xining in northwest Qinghai Province to Lhasa, is regarded as a national success in making the out-and-out impossible possible -- by building a rail route across the 5,000-meter-high mountain ranges and a 550-km-long frozen belt.

 

"The unique traditional Tibetan burial tradition formed during a long history will live on under the meticulous protection of the Chinese government," said Celha Qoisang, 65, a chief celestial burial operator at Drigung Til Monastery.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2006)