1881.] Br. Mifcra— Origin of ILjlli about Kerlerbs. 



parat, a cuibus lanietur : earn que optimam illi esse censent sepulturam." 

 (Quart. Tuscul, Lib. I, 45.) The same custom also obtained among 

 the Parthians, and Justin says " Sepultura vulgo aut avium aut canum 

 laniatus est." (Lib. XLI, cap. 3.) Prejvalsky has seen it among the 

 Northern Mongolians, where " the dead bodies, instead of being interred, are 

 flung to the dogs and birds of prey. An awful impression is produced 

 on the mind by such a place as this, littered with heaps of bones, through 

 which packs of dogs prowl like ghosts to seek their daily repast of human 

 flesh." (Mongolia, translated by E. D. Morgan, I, p. 14.) Horace della 

 Penna, a Capuchin friar, found at Lhassa, in 1719, the practice of cutting 

 up corpses to be given to dogs to be very common ; and Abbe Hue found 

 it among the Tibetans only a few years ago. At the last named place 

 Hue noticed four different forms of sepulture, of which he says, " la 

 quatrieme, qui est la plus flatteuse de toutes, consiste a couper les cadavres 

 par morceau et a les faire manger aux chiens. Cette derniere methode est 

 la plus courue". A reminiscence of this practice is still extant among the 

 Parsis. Their funeral ritual requires that when a corpse is brought to the 

 Dakhma, or the place where it is to be given up to vultures, it should be 

 first exhibited to one or more dogs, which, I noticed at Bombay, are kept 

 there for the purpose. This ceremonial is called Sagdid, and is strictly 

 observed as it is enjoined in their scriptures. (Vendidad, Farg. VII, v. 3.) 

 That this is a relic of the former detestable custom noticed by Herodotus 

 is evident from the fact of the said scriptures enjoining the exposure of 

 corpses on tops of hills that dogs and carrion birds may see and devour 

 them (Vendidad Farg. VII, vv. 73 74). 



And since this detestable practice exists now, and did exist three thou- 

 sand years ago and earlier, there is nothing very presumptuous in the 

 Supposition that it existed among the Aryans in their common home in cen- 

 tral Asia, before their dispersion to Europe and India, between four and five 

 thousand years ago. From these Aryans the Parsis have derived their 

 custom of giving up their dead to be devoured by vultures, and exhibiting 

 them to dogs, and from them has come the myth of dogs at the portal of 

 death. 



If on the strength of these arguments it could be assumed that the 

 custom of consigning corpses to dogs did at one time prevail among the 

 Aryans, the details of the myth could be easily and very consistently 

 explained. The idea of Eurytheus sending Herakles to destroy a dog 

 that did not exist on earth, and consequently did no harm to any body 

 is a very fanciful, not to say an unmeaning one. But if the above theory 

 be accepted, it would follow that the story is a mythical representation of 

 Herakles having been the first to set about putting a stop to the barbarous 

 practice of casting the dead to dogs, though the attempt did not prove 



