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Babu RSjendralala Mitra — A Picnic in Ancient India. [No. 4, 
the kin", the son of a king, Ghiasuddunyk waddfn Abu] Mnzaffar 
Mahmud Shah, the king, son of Hnsain S h k h the king, — may God per- 
petuate his kingdom and rnle. Its builder is a lady,— May she long live, and may 
God oontinuo her high position! 911 A. H. [A. D. 1531-35.] 
A Picnic in Ancient India. — By Ba'btj Ra'jendraia'xa Mitka. 
The Vedas represent the ancient Indo-Aryans to have been eminently 
religious in all their actions. According to them, every act of life had to be 
accompanied by one or more mantras, and no one could rise from his bed, 
or wash his face, or brush his teeth, or drink a glass of water, without going 
through a regular system of purifications, salutations, and prayers ; and if lie 
really did practice all the rites and ceremonies enjoined in those works, his life 
doubtless must have been an unbroken chain of religious observances from 
birth to burning-ground. It would seem, however, that the bulk of the 
community did nothing of the kind. Certain sacraments and initiatory 
rites everybody had to go through, and well-to-do persons had to celebrate 
feasts and fasts from time to time ; but in all such cases, the heaviest bur- 
den they had to bear was a pecuniary one, the actual performance of the 
ceremonies being left to the priesthood. Before the Tantric form of wor- 
ship got currency in the country, the S'udra had literally nothing to do by 
way of religious exercise beyond evincing a reverential devotion when he em- 
ployed one or more Brahmans to perform a sacrifice, or get through a sacra- 
ment, and to salute and bow as often as required. No Vedic mantra could 
be repeated by him even when offering water to the spirits of his ancestors, 
and there was for him no other set form of prayer wherewith to address the 
Great Father of the universe. The Vais'ya and the Kshatriya, as belonging 
to the twice-born classes, and having the right to wear the sacrificial cord, 
were at liberty to repeat Vedic mantras, and had to repeat them when going 
through particular sacraments, or performing s'raddhas ; but like the S'udras 
before the Tantric period, they had no regular service for daily observance 
beyond one or more salutations to the great soul of the sun, or the repetition 
of the Gayatri. At the periodical feasts and fasts they, as Yajamanas, or 
the institutors of sacrifices, provided the wherewithal to perform the rites 
and ceremonials, installed the priests in their respective offices, and 
recompensed them for their labour. But in the actual work of repeating 
mantras, offering oblations, and going through the ritual, they took but 
a slender share. 
It was the Brahman only for whom the Vedas enjoined an endless 
round of rites, ceremonies and observances, innumerable mantras for repetition 
on different occasions, and a host of fasts and penances extending from three 
