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VOL. XV. (2) RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF INDIA II7 
THE RUDE STONE MONUMENTS OF INDIA 
BY 
W. CROOKE, B.A., F.A.TI. 
(Plates IV. & V.) 
(Read February 14th, 1905.) 
India is the land of survivals in custom and culture. 
“Everywhere,” as Fergusson writes, “the past is the 
present, and the present is the past.” Among all its varied 
races the ultimate test of the value of any observance 
is whether it conforms to primitive custom, or does not ' 
conform to it. . 
In no department of ritual does this feeling of conserva- 
tism so strongly rule as in the cult of the dead, and in the 
method of disposing of the corpse. The reason of this is 
- obvious. If it be not the case, as some have imagined, 
that most of the gods of India are deified men who once 
lived upon earth, the connexion between the death ca/tus 
and the beliefs of Hinduism is very close. Wecan thus 
see at the present day usages of the most archaic variety 
practised side by side with those of a more modern type. 
The system of caste, which enforces the isolation of the 
people into distinct endogamous groups, naturally tends to 
perpetuate practices of this kind. We find some castes or 
races which cremate the dead and bury the bones: others 
cremate and fling the ashes into a running stream. Some 
bury in rudely-excavated tree-trunks: others in a grave so 
arranged as to prevent the earth from touching the corpse : 
