Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

highly polluted that the people would not even “see their
face” again. The inauspiciousness of the rites was
haunted by bad omens. One of the elephants had killed a
woman on his way to the capitol from Chitwan National
Park, and this was the elephant that became Dipendra’s
elephant. In Dipendra’s katto-ritual, bad omens were also
evident, people believed, when the elephant refused to
cross Bagmati River for the ceremonial cleansing. It was
interpreted that the king’s soul would not rest in peace.
Ritual realities – from theory to practice
Although both the katto-Brahmans were promised a new
settlement by the Prime minister before they ate the katto
meal, the promises were not fulfilled and both the kattopriests
were deceived. The priests felt cheated both by
the Prime Minister, other high-ranking officials and
priests at Pashupatinath. Durga Prasad Sapkota felt that
he was forced by another priest to do the katto-ritual.
Sapkota did not get the money he expected, and some
days after the ritual, the priest was very unhappy. He had
not received the house he was promised, the elephant
rebelled and did not want to carry him, and the landlord
had asked him to leave because he was too impure after
the katto-ceremony. Since he could not afford to keep
the elephant – it was both difficult and expensive with
fodder and place – he was forced to sell it back to those
who gave it to him for a very cheap price.
Durga Prasad Sapkota received only 5,000 rupees in lieu
of house and 2,500 rupees in lieu of land, he was paid
10,000 rupees for the elephant and only 1,000 rupees for
the horse, and altogether he received less than US$ 300
(fig. 1.13). He has therefore tried to sell everything else
he received which belonged to the king for Rs 700.000,
or approximately the 10,000 dollars he was promised.
King Dipendra’s katto-priest was also deceived, and
since they were the kings’ incarnates and impersonates,
people doubted that the dead souls of King Birendra and
King Dipendra rested in peace. Dipendra’s katto-ritual
was led by the main priest “Mool Pandit” Ramesh Nath
Pandey, and when Acharya realised that he was cheated,
he stopped the ritual and demanded more money and he
was bargaining with the Prime Minister. The priest
wanted a house in addition to the king’s belongings he
was offered, and Prime Minister Koirala promised him
the house. The ceremony continued, and the priest
partook the katto-meal. However, he received also only
some 270 dollars, and afterwards he regretted that he did
the katto-ceremony for Dipendra.
The official story is that the katto-priests ate parts of the
kings; what actually happened during the rituals? Durga
Prasad Sapkota is, as mentioned above, an Upadhyay
Brahman. According to him, the flesh of the king in the
katto-ritual is a relict myth from the past. He cooked the
meal himself, which consisted of daal baat (rice,
vegetables and lentils) and goat meat. There were not
eighty-four dishes altogether, only daal baat and some
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sweets and fruits. According to the funeral priests who
cremated the king, no fleshly parts of the body were
saved from the corpse or the pyre for the kattoceremony,
but the security guards kept some small parts
of the ashes for the katto-ceremony. The same happened
with Dipendra’s ashes, and some funeral priests ensured
that some small parts of the ashes from the kings were
put into the katto-priests’ meals without their knowledge,
because otherwise they could not have become so highly
impure. It was only symbolical, they believed, but it was
a part of the meal, because only goat meat would not
have affected and polluted the priests in such a negative
way. Durga Prasad Sapkota, on the other hand, used the
ashes and astu as evidence for the impossibility of
human remains or ashes in the katto-meal; all the
remains and ashes from the pyre were given or immersed
into the river. Whether the priests ate the king’s flesh, or
only some raw goat meat, is uncertain, but the taboos
imposed on them were as if they ate the king’s flesh.
After the katto-ritual Durga Prasad Sapkota continued
living in his old house at Pashupatinath because he had
no other options since he was deceived. He continued to
wear tika and his former clothes, which he used to wear
when he was a priest. It was difficult to live there, he
said, but he was not obliged or forced to move out from
the kingdom or to remote parts of Nepal. Nevertheless,
just after the ritual he could not walk openly in the
streets, and especially not at the Pashupatinath area.
People treated him as excluded from the community, and
he was basically spending his time sitting in the
backyard of his house. He felt guilty and impure after the
katto-ritual, but he acknowledged that it was too late to
regret that he had done the ritual.
The other temple and Funeral priests referred to Durga
Prasad Sapkota as “the priest who became a pode”,
meaning “the priest who became a toilet-cleaner”. This
statement is important for two reasons: the other Funeral
priests conceive themselves as pure and high caste
Brahmans even though they are temporarily influenced
by death pollution, and they perceive the katto-priests as
untouchables and equally polluted as, or more so than,
toilet cleaners. Durga Prasad Sapkota emphasised, on the
other hand, that he was a Brahman, although he
acknowledged that he was impure and a katto-Brahman.
His wife also stressed that both of them were Brahmans,
and they categorically refused to hear anything about
low-caste status. Despite his impure condition, old and
close friends still treated him as a friend and Brahman.
It is important to stress, again, that according to Sapkota,
he was not treated as, and he had definitively not
become, a low-caste person or outcaste, although he had
become impure after the ritual. He claimed all the time
that he could continue his work as a priest, but just after
the katto-ritual he complained that God was no longer
with him and that his body was getting old, and therefore
he had resigned from his priestly duties.