9G Dr. Mitra— Origin of Myth about Kerheros. [Mat, 



ultimately successful, for, according to the fable, Herakles restored the 

 dog to its place at the infernal gate. Not that Herakles was an entity, 

 for even Herodotus rejected some of his exploits on physical grounds, 

 but the mythical embodiment of the good actions of man. Similarly 

 the Orpheus myth would suggest the idea of the repugnance which 

 men must have felt in allowing their loved ones (symbolised in the 

 story in the person of Eurydike) to be eaten up by such hateful 

 animals, and of an attempt — an unsuccessful one again — to put down 

 that custom. It might be that the myth of Orpheus belongs to the 

 same class with that of Bacchus recovering his mother Semele from Hades, 

 and of Ulysseus, Odin and others visiting Hades, in which the original 

 idea is of Hades being accessible to mortals under certain circumstances. 

 The three or more heads of Kerberos may be accepted as implying 

 plurality, or many-sided watchfulness, or both ; and the quadruple eyes 

 of the Vedic legend typify the same idea. The serpent's tail and the 

 snaky mane of the dog would be the instruments with which corpses 

 were cut up into small morsels. The association of Kerberos with the 

 Dawn by making him the son of Dawn = Sarama = Echidna implies that 

 the removal of the dead in primitive times was generally effected at early 

 morn. It was so among the Greeks ; it is still the case with the Parsis and 

 Tibetans. Ancient Hindus absolutely prohibited cremation at night, and in a 

 verse of Yama, quoted in the Nirnayasindhu, it is said, " Let not cremation, 

 the first sraddha and travelling be performed at night or at dusk, for if done 

 they would be fruitless."* This is not now strictly followed, and to provide 

 for it, a later authority, the Skanda Purana, ordains that " should the crema- 

 tion be commenced at night it should not be completed until day dawns, 

 so that the offering of water and other rituals may be accomplished in day- 

 light". f The idea was carried further by declaring death at night to be 

 unwelcome. Thus in the Bhagavadgita, " Should a person die in gloom, at 

 night, during wane, or in course of the six months of the southern declen- 

 sion of the sun, he would go to the region of the moon, and then return to 

 the earth, (but never attain salvation) ".{ Manu indirectly explains the 



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