£54 On the Funeral Ceremonies of the ancient Hindus. [No. 4, 



bones, be joined with the third (other bones) in glory ; having 

 joined all the bones be handsome in person ; be beloved of the 

 gods in a noble place."* The bones should then be washed and 

 deposited in an urn, or tied up in a piece of black antelope skin. 

 The urn or bundle is then to be hung from the branch of a sami 

 or palasa tree. Should the bones belong to a person who had per- 

 formed a Soma sacrifice, they should be burnt again ; otherwise 

 they should be buried. For the latter purpose, an urn is absolutely 

 necessary, and after placing the bones into it, it should be filled up 

 with curds mixed with honey, and then covered over with grass* 

 As'valayana recommends an urn with a spout for females and one 

 without it for males. Two mantras are given, one for pouring 

 the mixture, and the other to be addressed to its droppings. 



Subsequently a proper place having been selected, a funeral pro- 

 cession should proceed to it in the morning, and the chief mourner 

 should begin the operations of the day by sweeping the spot with a 

 piece of leather or a broom of palasa or sami wood. Then, yoking a 

 pair of bullocks to a plough, he should dig six furrows running from 

 east to west, and, saluting them with a mantra, deposit the 

 urn in the central furrow. The bullocks should now be let loose 

 by the south side, and water sprinkled over the place with an 

 udumvara branch or from a jar. The covering of the urn is 

 then removed, some aromatic herbs, sarvaushadhi, are put into the 

 urn, and subsequently closed with pebbles and sand ; each of the 

 operations being performed while repeating an appropriate mantra. 

 A mantra should likewise be pronounced for every one of the opera- 

 tions which follow, and these include, first, the putting of bricks 

 around the urn ; 2nd, the throwing thereon some sesamum seed 

 and fried barley ; 3rd, placing some butter on an unbaked plate on 

 the south side ; 4th, spreading there some darbha grass ; 5th, sur- 

 rounding the tumulus with a palisade of palasa branches, and 6th, 

 crowning the whole by sticking on the top a flowering head of the 

 nala reed — arundo Tcarha. The operator then anoints his body with 



