( : 



OF A FAITHFUL HINDU WIDOW. 2 1 7 



€C numerous as the hairs on the human body; that I 

 li may enjoy with my husband the felicity of hea- 

 ven, and sanctify my paternal and maternal pro- 

 genitors, and the ancestry of my husband's fa- 

 ther; that lauded by the Apsarases, I may be hap- 

 " py with my lord, through the reigns of fourteen 

 " I ndras ; that expiation be made for my husband's 

 " offences, whether he has killed a B?\>hnana y 

 " broken the ties of gratitude, or murdered his friend, 

 ** thus 1 ascend my husband's burning pile. I call 

 <c on you, ye guardians of the eight regions of the 

 " world! Sun and Moon! Air, Fire, iEther (e\ 

 " Earth, and Water ! My own soul! Yuma! Day, 

 <c Night, and Twilight! And thou, Conscience, bear 

 '« witness : I follow my husband's corpse on the fu- 

 " neralpile (/)." 



" Having repeated the Sancalpa, she walks thrice 

 " round the pile; and the Brdhmana utters the fol- 

 " lowing Mantras: 



" O.vr ! Let these women, not to be widowed 

 " good wives, adorned with collyrium, holding cla- 

 " rifled butter, consign themselves to the fire. Im- 

 " mortal, not childless, nor husbandless, excellent, 

 " let them pass into fire, whose original element is 

 " water. From the Rigveda. 



(<•) Accra. 



{f) In several publications the woman has been described as 

 ing herself on the pile before it be lighted ; but the ritual 

 quoted is conformable to the text of the Bbagavata. 



" When the corpse is about to be consumed in the Sabotaja*, th« 

 faithful wife who stood without, rushes on the tire." 



Na'reda to Yudisht'hira. 



* Cabin of grass or leave?, sometimes erected on the funeral pile. 

 ♦* The Shed on the funeral piie of a Muni' is called ParnVtaja 

 *nd SAno'i-AM,'' See the vocabulary entitled Ha'ra'bali'. 



" Om! 



