The Relationship between Architecture and Ritual in the Hindu Crematorium

Hindu philosophy sees death as part of the cycle of life, and celebrates it. Despite this, crematoria and cemeteries have been largely ignored in architectural treatises in India. Funerary spaces are influenced by three centuries-old layers: religion, region, and time. This paper seeks to understand the architectural variation in funerary space by focussing on region (context) and time (temporal and/or political impact) to see how they influence form and function. By comparing examples from Hyderabad and Varanasi the paper lays out a theoretical framework for both rituals (based on scriptures) and the spaces in which they are enacted, so that these ancient traditions, and their architectural articulations, can be passed on for the future.