sky burial
- noun
- NSFW
:
entierro en el cielo
- The concept of sky burial is rooted in Tibetan Buddhism, emphasizing the connection between life and death.
- Tibetan sky burial
Examples
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We are walking up the hill right now hoping to see a sky burial, which is rather macabre.
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Today, over 80% of Tibetan Buddhists choose sky burial, a ritual that has been observed for thousands of years.
Blog text (25) -
"I'll see to it you get a sky burial, the real kind, so you'll be returned to the earth with a leg up on all these other wankers," I said, trying to smile.
Fiction book (1996) -
Many Tibetans believe that a sky burial allows the soul to attain a higher state by returning to nature.
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During his travels in Tibet, he attended a traditional sky burial where vultures fed on the deceased.
Surface Forms
Morphology
sky + burial
The parts 'sky' and 'burial' together signal a funerary disposal associated with the sky/open air, so a B1 learner who knows both words could infer it is a funeral practice performed outdoors rather than an in-ground interment. However, the exact cultural practice (exposure to scavenging birds, ritual excarnation) and the non-literal use of 'burial' are culturally specific and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, making the term only partially transparent.
Etymology
Sky burial comes from a clear image: the dead are placed on a high place so vultures or other birds take the body up into the sky. The word burial means a funeral, so the phrase refers to a funeral where the body is left for birds as a way of 'returning to nature'.
