Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 529

HINDU IDEA OF IMMORTALITY
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lion for enabling the soul to enter the blessed state and
And
enjoy the rights which it has forfeited through sin.
the prana, for instance, which is regarded by the Hindus
sometimes as the soul and sometimes as the breath of life,
reminds us of the spiraculum vitae of the Holy Scriptures,
by the aid of which the Creator gave life to the clay out of
which He formed mankind.
CHAPTER XXX
The Various Ceremonies observed
Hindu mourning
after Burial in
honour
of the
Dead.
one year, during which a large
number of ceremonies have to be observed. The principal
lasts
are as follow
On the day after the funeral the chief mourner, accom-
panied by his relatives and friends, goes to the place
consecrated to the burning of the dead. There he recom-
mences the ceremonies of the previous evening, without
forgetting the food for the crows, and places on the ground
The
the strip of cloth which has been torn from the pall.
Brahmins present take the bath of the dead (mritika-snana),
receive betel, and depart.
The heir, however, keeps back
one of them, and gives him two measures of rice, peas,
and vegetables, wrapped in a new cloth, which he presents
as well, so that he may make a good meal and be well
clothed by proxy as it were for the deceased, in case the
rice, the peas, the oil, and the water which have already
been offered for the latter may not be sufficient to allay
his hunger and quench his thirst, and so that he may not
be without clothes to cover his nakedness in the next
world.
On the third day, the heir again summons his relatives
and friends. He erects a small pandal in a corner of his
courtyard, and has rice, seven sorts of vegetables, cakes,
&c, cooked there. When these viands have been prepared,
he places them on a cloth folded in four, and covers them
Then five small earthen pots are
all with another cloth.
brought filled with pancha-gavia, as also a measure of rice,
some peas, vegetables, sandalwood, akshatas, three small
pieces of cloth dyed yellow, some flour, a small stick two
cubits in length, some betel, some gingelly oil, and the ten
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