Funeral and Ancestral Offerings

This chapter outlines the development of the enduring model of ritual ancestral offerings, the śrāddha. A discussion of the Vedic antecedents for ancestor worship provides context for describing the development of both solemn and domestic modes of ancestral offerings. The four forms of the śrāddha are described and shown to be a result of the synthesis of older ritual models. It is shown that three key historical shifts—the increasing importance of domestic modes of ritual activity, the greater extent and detail of textual treatments of the ancestral rites, and the central place given to ancestral ritual in the dharma tradition—play a key role in the development of the classical śrāddha, which becomes the paradigmatic ancestral rite that endures in contemporary practice.