JOUENAL 



OP THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



-* — 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &c. 

 No. IV.— 1870. 



On the Funeral Ceremonies of the Ancient Hindus. — By Bdbu 



Ra'jendraxa'la Mitra, 



[Read November, 1870.] 

 Two elaborate papers have already appeared on the funeral cere- 

 monies of the Hindus. The first, by H. T. Colebrooke, was publish- 

 ed in the Transactions of this Society about seventy years ago,* and 

 an abstract of it was soon after issued in Ward's History of the 

 Hindus. It contains the modern ritual as given in the Suddhi Tatt- 

 va of Raghunandana and other current works on the subject. The 

 second, entitled Die Todtenbestattung bei den Brahmanen, appeared 

 in the 9th volume of the Zeitschrift of the German Oriental Society s 

 Dr. Max Miiller, its author, gives in it the whole of As'valaya- 

 na's Sutras on the ancient ritual, and quotes largely from the Rig 

 Veda Sanhita and the aphorisms of Katyayana. A portion of it, 

 that bearing on the sepulchral ceremonies, has since been rendered 

 into English, by that learned scholar, and published by Professor 

 Wilson as a part of his Essay " on the supposed Vaidik authori- 

 ty for the burning of Hindu widows. "f Dr. Max Miiller is of 

 opinion that — " These burial ceremonies have been described 

 in detail by As'valayana only, and it is possible that the burial was 



* Asiatic Researches, VII. pp. 232—285. Essays, I. 155. 

 t Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, XVI, pp. 201-214. 



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