PERFUMING DEAD BODY

śavodvartana nyāyaḥ (perfuming a dead body)

There is no meaning to perfume a dead body.

At certain places around the world, where people are fond of putting dead bodies in the ground, they indeed perfume those bodies. They also put jewelry on it, dress it in nice and costly suits, and add some personal favorite things in the corpse's coffin. The idea behind all that is that it was a person while alive. Due to attachment and wrong understanding they perfume the corpse only. For that reason they also organize big festivals, with funeral feast. After that they put the dead body into the grave or sometime into stone tomb in the size of a house or palace. That is how far the attachment to matter goes. Material body is always dead. So even while breathing, walking, and performing other activities, it is always dead. All this happens only because the never-dying spirit soul is operating it. In any case, decorating the body is grotesque, or insane.

However, there is deeper understanding to this topic. All the nice and pleasurable items, including perfumes, scents, jewels, gold, diamonds, etc. are mean for the pleasure of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. So actually one should perfume and decorate one's body, when showing before the Deity or dealing with others for the sake of propagating Kṛṣṇa consciousness, all appropriately according to time and circumstances. It is also needed to build magnificent monuments for great Vaiṣṇava ācāryas, after they leave the mortal reminiscence, in the form of the body, they used for the service of Śrī Hari.