We don’t know if it was started by “Undertaker” in India or it was there before that too. But these days for every celebrity death, suicide or a big tragedy, people just jump to one line to show their condolence or sympathy ..”Rest In Peace” also known as ” R.I.P”. What does this RIP mean and story behind it, We never care to know.
First we need to know history or say mythology behind this RIP. This article will also answer a common question.
Why Christians or Muslims bury their dead bodies and Hindus/Muslims cremate the dead bodies??
Answer to this question lies in the belief and traditions of these religions.
If we see christian point of view, as soon as a person dies, his soul enters hell or heaven but his body has to wait for the “Judgement Day”. In the end, body resurrects (like undertaker from the grave, just he does it more often than not :P) and meet its soul again and then final judgement will be passed on that person, according to that he will be judged as a whole (body plus soul) and sent to hell or heaven.
So till Judgement Day, body has to be preserved. This is the main religious reason for Christians to bury their dead.
Now if ask someone, What is “rest”??
If you sleep,take a small nap and again wake up to do your work. That nap or sleep duration is called “rest”.
Same way “Rest In Peace” means the rest you have from your death to judgement day. So when you type R.I.P as a comment to show your condolence, all you wish for is this rest in peace. “peace”, because when there is no one to disturb you, it is peace.
There is a similar kind of concept in Islam too called “Yawm al-Qiyamah or Yawm ad-Din” So Muslims also believe that judgement day in future is a certainty and this is the main reason that they also bury their dead.
This also gives us a very important point that there is only one birth in Christianity and Islam. There is no concept of Reincarnation or “punr-Janam” in these two religions.
But now if we come to Hindus or Sikhs, they cremate the dead bodies. The very first reason, they don’t have any judgment day where their body has to make its presence. Body is not at all important. When you die, you go to hell or heaven or take a new birth or you are liberated from this cycle of life and death called “Moksha”. So there is no need of body for all these four options and they burn the bodies outright whenever someone dies. So here also if you want to say to show your condolence, you can choose “wish for a heaven” or a better one “Liberation or Moksha”. “Rest in peace” has no place in this kind of culture.
Interestingly, As a matter of fact “Parsis” leave their dead on the roof for vultures to eat them.
So we have all these different kind of views about our dead.
All these things we explained earlier wont suite a rational mind.
For all the rational people, Islam/Christianity came from Middle east in and around. So there was ample land but not availability of wood as it was mostly desert and no jungle. That’s why they preferred burial instead of cremation. Here in India, we have so much availability of wood because of our tropical climate that we cremate our dead. On the top of that it is cheaper to cremate a person than a proper burial.
Therefore, History and Geography both have a role to play in this. But this “RIP” thing has become too famous without any significant purpose. Better you recall all this before writing RIP on some FB wall.