The peculiarity you find is that the Semitic races and the Egyptians try to preserve the dead bodies, while the Aryans try to destroy them.
The Greeks, the Germans, the Romans--your ancestors before they became Christians--used to burn the dead.
It was only when Charlemagne made you Christians with the sword -- and when you refused, [he] cut off a few hundred heads, and the rest jumped into the water -- that burying came here.
You see at once the metaphysical significance of burning the dead. The burying of the dead can only remain when there is no idea of the soul, and the body is all.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Class Talk in London,
May 7, 1896
The Greeks, the Germans, the Romans--your ancestors before they became Christians--used to burn the dead.
It was only when Charlemagne made you Christians with the sword -- and when you refused, [he] cut off a few hundred heads, and the rest jumped into the water -- that burying came here.
You see at once the metaphysical significance of burning the dead. The burying of the dead can only remain when there is no idea of the soul, and the body is all.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Class Talk in London,
May 7, 1896
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