Buddhist Way of Death 
From Singapore Hotels & Singapore Lifestyle
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Sago Street in Chinatown used to be full of death houses - places where the sick and old would go to end their days, as to die at home was regarded as inauspicious. Coffin makers and funeral parlours occupied premises on the street level, along with places selling paper effigies and wreaths made of frangipani flowers.
Now, of course, these places have disappeared and Sago Street is better known for its cake and confectionary shops.
The last resting place for tens of thousands of Singaporeans is a niche in the columbarium (a repository for cremation urns) of Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery in Bishan. Here is one of Singapore's main crematoriums, where you can see the full rights of a Buddhist funeral ceremony any day of the week.
In the crematorium five ovens stand side by side and it's not uncommon for several funeral ceremonies to be conducted at the same time, with nothing separating the grieving families and the chanting monks of each party but a few metres' space between the stainless-steel biers. Once the body is passed into the furnace, it will take 1 1/2 hours for it to be reduced to ashes, during which time the family usually retires home or to a separate hall for the wake.
In the past, the wakes went on for 49 days; now they are restricted by legislation to seven.
When ready, the steaming ashes are brought out for the family's inspection and the largest pieces of bone are picked out and placed in yellow earthenware caskets. The caskets are sealed, signed with the deceased's name and enclosed with their black-and-white photograph before being placed in one of the halls of the adjoining columbarium.
The caskets lie in neat towering ranks, just like the rows of HDB Flats that the dead more than likely occupied during their lives. For those associated with the monastery and with more cash to spare (the average funeral costs well into five figures), fancier niches are available; these are the gold labelled ones, closest to the shrine of Bodhisattvas.
