﻿256 ON THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES 



iher of Palasa* instead of tongs, first draws out 

 from the ashes the bones of the head, and afterwards 

 the other bones successively ; sprinkles them with 

 perfumed liquids and M'ith clarified butter made of 

 cow's milk ; and puts them into a casket made of 

 the leaves of the Palm a : this he places in a new 

 earthen vessel, covers it with a lid, and ties it up 

 with thread. Choosing some clean spot where en- 

 croachments of the river are not to be apprehended, 

 he digs a very deep hole, and spreads cusa grass at 

 the bottom of it, and over the grass a piece of yel- 

 low cloth ; he places thereon the earthen vessel con- 

 taining the bones of the deceased, covers it with a 

 lump of mud, together with thorns, moss and mud ; 

 and plants a tree in the excavation, or raises a 

 mound of masonry, or makes a pond, or erects a 

 standard. He, and the rest of the kinsmen, then 

 bathe in their clothes. At a subsequent time, the 

 son or other near relation fills up the excavation, and 

 levels the ground ; he throws the ashes of the funeral 

 pile into the water; cleans the spot with cow-dung 

 and water; presents oblation to S'iva and other 

 deities in the manner before mentioned, dismisses 

 those deities, and casts the oblation into water. To 

 cover the spot where the funeral pile stood, a tree 

 should be planted, or a mound of masonry be raised, 

 or a pond dug, or a standard be erected f. Again at a 



sub^ 



* Bufea frondosa Linn, and superba Roxb. 



+ This does not appear to be very universally practised ; but a mo. 

 nnment is always erected on the spot where a woman has burnt herself 

 with her husband's corpse, or where any person has died a legal volun- 

 tary death. A mausoleum is however often built in honour of a 

 Hindu prince or noble; it is called in the ///V/^/Ki/a;// language, a 

 Ch'hetri; and the practice of consecrating a temple in honour of the 

 deceased is still m.ore common, especially in the centrical parts of India. 

 I shall take some future occasion to resume a subject alluded to in this 

 note ; but in the mean time it may be fit to remark, that legal suicide 

 was formerly common among the Hmdus, and is not now very rare ; 

 although instances of men's burning themselves have not perhaps lately 

 occurred so often as their drowning themselves in holy rivers. The 

 blind father and mother of the young anchorite, whom Das'arat'h\ 



slew 



