258 On the Funeral Ceremonies of the ancient Hind as. [No. -1, 



miserable passport to heaven. Dr. Wilson was the first to Buspect, 

 in 1856$ in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society (Vol. xvi, p. 201), that " H had reference to some procession, 

 one possibly accompanying the corpse, but had nothing whatevi 

 do ^ itli consigning live females to the fire ;" and, for a guess, it was 

 as close as it well could be. The late Sir Raja Radhakanta Deva 

 wrote a reply to this paper, in 1858, and in 1867, in a foot-note 

 about three times larger than the paper to which it is attached, a 

 writer, in the same periodical, (Vol. II, N. 8. pp. 184-191,) en 

 into an elaborate verbal and punctilious criticism, hut the i 

 mony for which the stanza was intended or to which it was applied, 

 was left undetermined. In Raja Radhakanta's letter to l>r. "Wil- 

 son, a quotation was given from the Sutras of Bharadvaj a which 

 gave the real clue to it, but none noticed it at the time. The 

 true bearing is now made manifest, for, 1 believe, few will \<n- 

 hire to question the authority of Baudhayana in such . matter. 

 His words live— at //a i ta/i patnayo nayane sarpishd sammris'anti .- " Nod 

 these women smear their eyes with butter." Bharadvaj a 

 strindm anjalishu sampMdnavanayatimandririti : "For placing 

 Hie sampata in the hands of the women the mantra Imd ndri 

 Sfc." According to AVvalavana, the verse should he repeated bj 

 the chief mourner when looking at the women after they have ap- 

 plied the collyrium ; imd ndriravidhavdh supatnirityanjdnd ihlteta. 

 This difference is due evidently to the authors belonging to 

 different sakhas. Anyhow, it is abundantly clear that the \ 

 was not intended to recommend self-immolation, but to be addn 

 to female mourners, wives of kinsmen, having their husbands living, 

 not the widow, to put on collyrium, or to look at them after 

 the operation. The PrayogaMra says, iatah sampdtapdtrai 

 ya sabhatrilcastr'mAm anjalishu sampdtam avanayati, " then taking the 

 sampata patra he places it on the hands of the women who have 

 husbands, with the mantra imdh, tip." 



The reading of the stanza appears differently in different recen- 

 sions. According to Raghunundana, as given in the Serampur 

 edition of his works, and in my MS. it is as follows : — 



