The permissibility
and consequences of an act that has generated differing perspectives across
time.
Depending on the circumstances surrounding the deed,
medieval commentators differentiated between numerous sorts of suicide.
Suicide motivated by a strong emotional urge like fury or
sadness was always banned, and those who did so were thought to suffer terrible
karmic penalties.
Suicide as an expiation (prayashchitta) for one's crimes,
which was often ordered to expiate one of the Four Great Crimes, was an
altogether different scenario.
Suicide by those suffering from a fatal illness or severe
pain was a third category.
This kind of suicide followed a well-defined procedure
designed to put the perpetrator in the right state of mind.
This third category was one of the ceremonies that was
"forbidden in the Kali [Age]" (Kalivarjya), despite the fact that it
had been practiced before.
Suicides in pilgrimage locations (tirtha), notably in
Allahabad, were the most fascinating.
This was also done according to a highly detailed ritual,
which required the performer to specify the benefit for which the ceremony was
being performed—in some instances, soul liberation (moksha), and in others,
eternal life in paradise.
This practice was thoroughly recorded up to the seventeenth
century, but it is no longer practiced today.
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