This volume has all the characteristics of a collection of conference papers, in this case the National Conference on Aging and Dying: Relevance of Indic Perspectives to End-of-life Care, held in Kharagpur, West Bengal, in 2005. That is not to say there is anything wrong with the papers – some are fascinating – but they do not form a coherent whole, and the writing is patchy, whilst the division of the book into three sections is not completely effective. The volume is redeemed by a superb introduction, however, which brilliantly draws together the threads of what each author says, and more. For instance, the assertion that the entire philosophy (within the Indic conceptualisation of ageing and dying) is ‘death-embracing rather than death-denying’ stops the reader in his or her tracks. It is clearly true to say that ‘there is a greater realism in accepting the transience of existence, the aging and withering of the body, and the place of the elderly in the social system’ (p. 19), but how that sits with some Muslim thought in India is not fully explored, given that Muslims are astonishingly life-affirming on the whole, and convinced that one should do all one can to preserve human life in all circumstances. Indeed, the chapter on Islam, by Manisha Sen and Shafi Shaikh, is curiously unforthcoming on all this, preferring instead to dwell on the inevitability of death, personal accountability before Allah, and the immortality of the soul. The extent to which Islam as practised in India is influenced by the ‘death-embracing’ wider culture is not explored.

That is a quibble. There is discussion about the ways in which contemplation of one's mortality is essential for spiritual growth, whilst the emphasis on the design of the traditional staging of life, with Vanaprasthasrama representing the third stage of life when the individual moves away from the family to a secluded place and ‘engages in the pursuit of higher knowledge and spiritual advancement’ provides a reality for what might otherwise seem purely theoretical. So too does the emphasis on how the Indic approach prepares for the decaying body, at least in part because the ‘prioritisation of the body is almost absent in Indian philosophy’ (p. 20). The soul continues its existence. It may be reborn in another shape or being. In this thinking, ‘death does not mean destruction’, and the result is a wholly different view from that in the west.

At best this can mean old people being treated superbly well, wherever they might be, home or care home. Indeed, the volume contains a study of a care home in Varanasi (Banaras or Kashi) by Umesh K. Singh, ‘Culture-specific and culture-sensitive end-of-life care: a case study based in Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan, Banaras’. The home looks after old and terminally ill people in accordance with Hindu teaching. Banaras has a large number of care homes, with this one catering to the relatively poor who are thought to gain hugely in terms of spiritual richness by being able to die in Kashi. Families bring their terminally ill and very aged relatives there to wait for them to die, staying with them and supporting them. The majority of the people interviewed made it clear that it was the strong wish of the dying person themselves to die in Kashi, which led to the effort being made to bring them.

It could not be more different from a western-style hospice, and yet both are based on a holistic view of death and both have a strong sense of the need for a spiritual journey. Though that journey may be described differently, the idea that people have to make an effort, or go through some kind of transformation, is jointly held. And it is this kind of insight that makes this volume remarkable. For the editors have put together a short essay on different conceptions of ageing and death that stands in its own right, and it is that essay which stands out amongst the other papers, interesting though some of them are. The essay that looks at the Kashi Labh Mukti Bhawan makes it clear that death in the Hindu belief system is a culturally-constructed idea. For ‘it is neither the fear of death nor the negation of earthly existence that is important; instead, it is the migration from one life to another that is intermediated by the mor(t)al death. An individual accepts the inevitability of death and, despite all the trauma and pain preceding death, gets ready for a newer existence/life’ (p. 261). For that essay, and those insights, it is worth students and academics alike reading this volume, even if some of the papers can be scanned briefly, since they may well leave the reader cold.