It is widely believed that God has given the opportunity of a human body to do noble and self-purifying acts. It is only in the fitness of things that we owe it to Him to return the body in the self same state.
Anatha Pretha Kainkarya Trust, started in 2001 is a charitable organization involved in performing honourable last rites to orphaned dead.
The name, suggested by His Holiness Sankaracharya of Kanchipuram, means service to orphaned dead.
The Trust is a not-for-profit, secular, apolitical organization, with the avowed ideal of giving departed souls a decent farewell.
The Trust has performed Agni Samskaram (last rites) to more than 5800 bodies as of 5 June 2020 since its inception and counting still...
"When we are related, we perform the last rites somehow or the other. There may be flaws in how we do. But we do not totally avoid doing it. Even when we stop doing Amavasya tharpanam, srardam and all that, even atheist Hindus, following their culture, do not fail to do the pretha samskaras (final rites) to the deceased, cremate or bury.
Alright, what about those who do not have any relatives? What happens to their bodies, the machines created by God? Sastras declare that the society has to organize the last rites for such people.
It is painful state of affairs among Hindus in this regard. Even though now things are organized here and there after my repeated appeals, this is not enough. Previously I used to be very upset. Then, when an orphan Hindu died in a hospital or in the middle of the road, there was no arrangement to perform any last rite for him. Even now it is so in many places. Hospitals do a postmortem, just for the sake of formality and bury the bodies or the municipality or Panchayat buries the bodies. It is a sin, a flaw to the society when it fails to do the last rites according to the codes prescribed in sastras.
Other religious organizations have made proper arrangement in this matter. So they are not affected by the sin of not offering the dead body to God according to their religious code of discipline.
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