Hanuman’s incarnation? Over 4,000 villagers hold funeral feast for monkey in MP, human-style full rituals performed
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Hanuman’s incarnation? Over 4,000 villagers hold funeral feast for monkey in MP, human-style full rituals performed")
Representational Image. Photograph: (Freepik)
In a belief that the monkey is an incarnation of Lord Hanuman, villagers performed all rituals typically reserved for human family members. They decorated the monkey’s bier on 8 November and held a funeral procession with music before cremating.
In an unusual event, over 4,000 people of Darawari village in the Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday gathered for a mrityu bhoj (funeral feast) in honour of a monkey that is believed to be an incarnation of Lord Hanuman. Monkey lost its life 12 days earlier after being electrocuted by a high-tension power line.
In a belief that the monkey is an incarnation of Lord Hanuman, villagers performed all rituals typically reserved for human family members. They decorated the monkey’s bier on 8 November and held a funeral procession with music before cremating it at Shanti Dham with full Hindu rites, as per the IANS report.
Eleven days later, the village’s Patel, Biram Singh Sondhiya, along with other locals, travelled to Ujjain to immerse the ashes in the Shipra River. Priests oversaw the rituals, including symbolic acts such as shaving the “beard” and performing the customary eleventh-day rites, mirroring traditional human funerary practices.
After returning to the village, residents organised a grand ‘mrityu bhoj’ on the twelfth day. The community contributed nearly Rs 1 lakh to host the feast. Preparations included puris made from about five quintals of flour, 40 kg of sev, curries prepared with 100 litres of buttermilk, one quintal of sugar and various vegetarian dishes. Invitations were sent to nearby villages, drawing people from as far as 30–35 kilometres away.
MP villagers host funerary feast for 'langur'
A similar incident was witnessed in Madhya Pradesh in 2021, where the residents of Dalupura village of Rajgarh district hosted a mass feast for around 1,500 people as part of the funerary rituals of a langur that lost its life due to the cold on December 29, 2021. Additionally, villagers also took part in the funeral procession of the simian before cremating it in the traditional way, along with the chanting of hymns on December 30.
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“It is a custom in our village that if a monkey dies here, then all residents get together to perform funerary rituals that are done for any human being. The ‘mrityu bhoj’ took place on Friday, and 1,500 people attended,” Arjun Singh Chouhan, former sarpanch of Dalupura village, told the news agency PTI on January 10, 2022.
The PTI report indicated that monkeys were considered to be the incarnation of Lord Hanuman by the villagers. Monkeys are widely considered sacred in several parts of India due to their connection with Lord Hanuman, and often receive reverential treatment in rural communities.
