Shelving the dead in Japan

The BBC reports that a new trend is emerging in Japan’s burial rites. As the population grows older and land values skyrocket on the island nation, the Japanese now have the option to bury the dead by stacking urns in multi-story warehouses.

Ceremonious or not, at least one Buddhist thinks it’s a great idea: Buddhist monk Ryutoku Ohora says,

“You can put ashes for two people in one box. So 7,000 people maximum in this space, [when] for a normal graveyard you would get 100 graves in this area [of land].”

In this life or the next, practicality triumphs.