Temple eye banking: cornea donation practice at Pashupati crematorium in Nepal

Abstract

In high-income countries where eye care is advanced, cornea harvesting is hidden from public view. Here entire eyeball enucleations performed on corpses are done in hospital morgues without mourners’ presence. For the last two decades, the traditional public crematorium area next to the Pashupatinath temple at the holy river Bagmati east of Kathmandu, has become a major Nepal Eye Bank site for motivated cornea donations. To be cremated in the premises of the Pashupatinath temple is considered highly auspicious. After families have given their consent, the cremation rituals are briefly interrupted by the Nepal Eye Bank staff, and cornea button excisions are performed in public space. Thus, mourners regularly view and assist during the removal of cornea button tissues from the deceased before the bodies are burned on the open funeral pyres or in the electric crematorium. How is it that Nepali mourners at Pashupati crematorium accept and comply with cornea donation practice? I argue that cornea donation at Pashupati is a collective achievement accomplished by complex socio-material arrangements that bring together various professionals, procedural manuals, legal framework, equipment, medical intervention, the deceased body, and mourners during the cremation practice.