 In the early 1990s , a 27 @-@ year @-@ old Motoki and his friend travelled to India ; just before going , at the friend 's recommendation he read Shin 'ya Fujiwara 's Memento Mori ( Latin for " remember that you will die " ) . While in India , he visited Varanasi , where he saw a ceremony in which the dead were cremated and their ashes floated down the Ganges . Witnessing this ceremony of death against a backdrop of bustling crowds going about their lives deeply affected Motoki . When he returned to Japan , he read numerous books on the subject of death , and in 1993 wrote a book on the relationship between life and death : Tenkuu Seiza — Hill Heaven . Among the books he read was Shinmon Aoki 's autobiographical Coffinman : The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician ( 納棺夫日記 , Nōkanfu Nikki ) , which exposed Motoki to the world of the nōkanshi for the first time . Motoki said he found a sense of mystery and near @-@ eroticism to the profession that he felt had an affinity with the film world . 
