1870.] On the Funeral Ceremonies of the ancient Hindus. 261 



The meaning of the stanza, word for word, would be imah " these," 

 north irregular plural nominative of ndri, " woman," alluding to 

 the ladies of the kinsmen who have assembled at the ceremony ; the 

 regular form is nary ah. The women have for predicates, avidhavdh 

 "not widows," or "unwidowed" and supatni, " having good 

 husbands." (siqjati). Those who apply the stanza to concre- 

 mation explain the first word by " not to be widowed," a 

 meaning which it cannot be made to bear, there being neither any 

 rule nor analogy to support it. The next word dnjanena is an 

 adjective qualifying sarpishd, both in the instrumental case, mean- 

 ing " with collyrious butter." The verb necessary for these ele- 

 ments should be one which means a applying or " smearing," 

 and this is what we have in sammris'antdm, " let smear," from 

 the root mris' ll to smear." The Rig Vedic reading sanvis'antu, 

 from the root vis' " to enter," can have no relation to the instru- 

 mental, except as entering with the butter applied to the eye, 

 in which case the ordinary plan would be to convert the two words 

 in the instrumental case into one epithet, serving as an adjective 

 to the nominative, women. It is therefore probable that the root 

 vis' had, in ancient times, the meaning of decorating or putting 

 on, as we have now the same root used to indicate " dressing," 

 ves'a, whence ves'ya " a woman who lives by her dress, — a harlot." 

 Yaska adopts this meaning when he includes ves'-ati among the 

 verbs for ornamentation, hdntilarma. Sayana, not perceiving this 

 when he commented on the Rig Veda, took the word in its ordinary 

 signification, and so interpreted the stanza as to make the women 

 first enter their own houses — sagrihdn privis'antu, and subsequently 

 the house, ' jonij of the chief mourner; in so doing he had to 

 supply what he supposed was an elipse, and thereby entirely to 

 mislead his readers. The new reading of the word in the Ararjyaka 

 now leaves no doubt on the subject. 



The words of the second line anas'ravdh " tearless," anamivdh 

 " diseaseless" or free from pain either of body or mind, (it has 

 been loosely rendered in one of the above quotations by " not 

 miserable,") sus'evdh " well served," all refer to, and are epithets of, 

 janayah" wives," which follows. In the Rig Yeda the last epithet is 



