1870.] On the Funeral Ceremonies of the ancient Hindus. 257 



ma of the Indian bazars. It should be applied with the three central 

 unexpanded leaves of the kusa grass which are thin, pliant, and 

 pointed, like a camel hair brush, and answer the purpose better 

 than the iron or stone style or bodkin which up-country women now 

 use. The leaves being afterwards thrown away on a bundle of that 

 grass, while repeating a mantra, the party proceed towards the east, 

 leading the bull and saying : " These men, forsaking the dead, are 

 returning. This day we invoke the gods for our good, for success 

 over enemies, and for our merriment. We proceed eastward, having 

 well sustained long lives."* 



The last of the party, who is the chief mourner, should then 

 recite another mantra, and with a sami branch efface the foot- 

 marks of the bull that precedes the party. On the departure of the 

 last man, the Adhvaryu should place a circle of stones behind him 

 as a wall to prevent death overtaking those that have gone forward, 

 praying — " I place this circle (of stones) for the living ; may we 

 and others not go beyond it in mid-life ; may we all live a hundred 

 autumns, driving death away by this heap."f The party then 

 repair to the house of the chief mourner and feast on kid and 

 barley, cooked for the purpose. Separate mantras are given for 

 the eating of the two articles. 



The most important of all the mantras above quoted, is the one 

 which is intended as a direction to women to put on collyrium. It 

 was first translated by Colebrooke, in 1795, as " the only Yaidik au- 

 thority for the rite of Sati." Before him the compiler of the 

 twenty-eight Smritis had quoted it for the same purpose, and no 

 doubt thousands over thousands of deluded women, in the moment 

 of their greatest grief, have been sent to the blazing pyre with this 



This verse, in the original, occui's a little before the one about the applica- 

 tion of the collyrium. I have displaced it for the sake of consistency. 



t T*f oftiwr: Tfrfs? ^rfa *n ^Ts*w^n:T ^^tt i wai 5ffa=fr 



» j 



Most of the mantras quoted above occur in the 10th Mandala of the Rig 

 Veda, but t heir readings there are different, and they do not appear in the same 

 order. Wilson's translations thereof do not, therefore, in many essential parti- 

 culars, correspond with what I have given above. Vide Journal K. As. Soc, 

 XVI, 201.2. 



33 



