Secrecy today surrounded plans by George Harrison's family to immerse the ashes of the Beatle guitarist in the sacred Ganges river.
A spokesman for the Hare Krishna movement, of which Harrison was a longtime devotee, said that the musician's widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, were headed for the bustling holy city of Varanasi to carry out the rites.
But the timing of the ceremony for Harrison, who died last week in Los Angeles after battling cancer, was unclear, and some officials said it might have taken place already.
Hare Krishna spokesman Mr Mahamantra Das said the family wanted to make the ceremony very private for the youngest of the Beatles who revolutionised the sound of pop music in the 1960s.
According to the tenets of Hare Krishna, a Hindu sect, immersion of the ashes is symbolic of the soul's journey towards eternal consciousness.
Harrison (58) was cremated in a cardboard coffin hours after his death in keeping with his Eastern faith.
Reporters in Varanasi hunted for the ceremony along the string of ghats or steps leading down to the Ganges as brides in red saris made floral offerings and Hindu priests in cotton waist-wraps held rites for the dead.
"None of the police officers has any clue with regard to George Harrison's rites," Varanasi police inspector-general Mr Vikram Singh said.
Varanasi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has at least 80 ghats where the devout take dips aimed at cleansing sins, make sacred offerings or cremate bodies and immerse the ashes.
State Home Secretary Mr Naresh Dayal said, "I wouldn't be surprised if they [the family] have already come and gone because they've neither contacted the district administration nor the local police for any kind of assistance".