{"id":20631,"date":"2024-02-19T04:34:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T04:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=20631"},"modified":"2024-02-19T04:34:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T04:34:21","slug":"hindus-are-now-allowed-to-scatter-ashes-of-the-deceased-in-the-aare-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2024\/02\/19\/hindus-are-now-allowed-to-scatter-ashes-of-the-deceased-in-the-aare-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindus Are Now Allowed to Scatter Ashes of the Deceased in the Aare River"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SWITZERLAND, January 16, 2024 (Baern Today<\/em>, translated from German): In Hinduism, the ashes of the deceased are traditionally scattered into a river. A Hindu association has recently been officially allowed to carry out the ritual on the Aare in Bern – but only 20 times a year. Priest Sasikumar Tharmalingam explains what the approval means for his association. \u201cThis is a big milestone for us,\u201d says Sasikumar Tharmalingam. He is a Hindu priest and pastor at the Saivanerikoodam association in the House of Religions in Bern. The association has been allowed to carry out water burials on the Aare in Bern since last autumn. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible relief,\u201d continued Tharmalingam. \u201cWe normally send the urns to Varanasi, India, to the holy river Ganges.\u201d But that doesn’t always work. In addition, it is important for the second generation, whose parents lived in Switzerland for 20 to 30 years, to be able to have the funeral here in the area. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s a big gift for us that we can now do it here,\u201d says the Hindu priest.

In order to be able to carry out water burials in the canton of Bern, the Saivanerikoodam association had to obtain a so-called water protection permit. As David Leutwyler, representative for church and religious affairs for the canton of Bern, explains, the permit allows the Hindu association to carry out a maximum of 20 burials per year. The place where the ritual takes place is also determined. \u201cIt is an easily accessible location on the outskirts of the city where other uses are small. Otherwise people don\u2019t swim or do sports there.\u201d In view of the around 60,000 Tamils who currently live in Switzerland, the 20 approved water burials sound like a small number. \u201cWe tried to define a realistic number,\u201d says David Leutwyler. According to him, the number is appropriate. Sasikumar Tharmalingam also thinks so, as he explains. However, he also says: \u201cIn the future we will have to look at it again. There are currently around 10,000 retired Tamils in Switzerland, and there will be even more in the future.\u201d

https:\/\/www.baerntoday.ch\/bern\/stadt-bern\/hindus-duerfen-asche-von-verstorbenen-nun-in-der-aare-verstreuen-155976359
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SWITZERLAND, January 16, 2024 (Baern Today, translated from German): In Hinduism, the ashes of the deceased are traditionally scattered into,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20631"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20642,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631\/revisions\/20642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}