208 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



are not told. By the same belief Mr. Crooke explains 

 one of the marriage rites of the Deshashth Brahmans 

 of Dharwar. " Among them/' he says, " the couple 

 first walk thrice round the sacred fire. A stone called 

 the Ashmd, or spirit stone, that which is used at the 

 funeral rites of the tribe, and into which . . . the 

 spirit of the dead man is supposed to enter, is kept 

 near the fire, and at each circuit, as the bride followed 

 by the bridegroom approaches this stone, she stands 

 on it till the priest finishes reciting a hymn. Here it 

 seems clear that the idea underlying the rite is that 

 the spirit of one of the tribal or family ancestors 

 occupying the stone becomes reincarnated in her, and 

 so she becomes ' a joyful mother of children.' For 

 it must be remembered that according to Indian 

 popular belief all conception is ... the result of a 

 process of this kind, one of the ancestors becoming 

 reborn in each successive generation." * 



In the foregoing examples it appears that any 

 ancestor may return. It will be remembered that the 

 Laws of Manu specifically taught that the husband 

 was born again of his wife. Mr. Rose points out that 

 as a consequence of this the father was supposed to 

 die and in certain sections of the Khatris of the Panjab 

 (for instance, the Kochhar) his funeral rites are 

 actually performed in the fifth month of the mother's 

 pregnancy. He adds: ''Probably herein lies an 

 explanation of the dev-kdj, or divine nuptials, a cere- 

 mony which consists in the formal remarriage of the 

 parents after the birth of their first son. The wife 

 leaves her husband's house, and goes not to her 

 parents' house but to the house of a relative, whence 

 1 F. L. xiii. 236. 



