Buddhism and death

God of death and sin. Ruler of the 6th heaven in the Kāmadhātu

Nyingma terma text revealed by Karma Lingpa

or just is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This syncretic folk Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as .

thumb|The death of the Gautama Buddha|Buddha, or Mahaparinirvana, [[Gandhara 2–3rd century]]

thumb|Tibetan art|Tibetan illustration of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the post-mortem intermediate state (bardo). Some Tibetan Buddhists hold that when a being goes through the intermediate state, they will have visions of various deities. In some schools of Buddhism, bardo ( Wylie: bar do) or antarābhava (Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese: 中有, romanized in Chinese as zhōng yǒu and in Japanese as ''chū'u'') is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. The concept arose soon after Gautama Buddha's death, with a number of earlier Buddhist schools accepting

being is born again into one of many realms of existence after physical death, a doctrine in Buddhism

is a type of Buddhist mummy. In Japan the term refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive. Although mummified monks are seen in a number of Buddhist countries, especially in Southeast Asia where monks are mummified after dying of natural causes, it is believed that it is only in Japan where monks have induced their own deaths by starvation.

a Buddhist dharmapala (wrathful god) said to judge the dead, preside over the Narakas (Hells) and the cycle of afterlife saṃsāra

genre of poetry

thumb|A shmashana outside an Indian village A shmashana () is a Hindu crematory ground, where dead bodies are brought to be burnt on a pyre. It is usually located near a river or body of water on the outskirts of a village or town; as they are usually located near river ghats, they are also regionally called smashan ghats.

Chinese conception of the preta of Buddhist mythology

name for a Buddhist who has taken refuge in three treasures, following the five precepts

form of joss paper printed to resemble bank notes

Japanese painting with Buddhist theme

buddhist rites after a person's death