Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 537

KSHATRIYA, VAISYA, AND SUDRA FUNERALS
497
mins. the ceremonies which are observed hasting twelve
days.
It is always a purofiita who presides at the death-bed,
and who directs the mourning ceremonies in both these
The chief mourner invites the Brahmins, to whom
castes.
These ceremonies are
offerings and presents are made.
and after that
repeated every month during the first year
it suffices if the titi, that is the anniversary, is celebrated
;
regularly.
The last services which the Sudras render to their dead
are accompanied by much less ceremony and formality.
They have neither mantrams nor sacrifices. However,
when a Sudra's last hour is come, it is customary to call
a Brahmin to go through the ceremony of prayaschitta
(expiation) for him.
His family is also permitted to bestow
on the Brahmins godana and dasa-dana, as well as the other
customary gifts and presents. As soon as a Sudra dies,
they wash his body and have him shaved by the barber.
Then they pay attention to his toilet, which they strive to
render as elegant as possible, and afterwards place him
sitting cross-legged on a sort of bed of state.
When all is
ready for the obsequies, they remove him, still in the same
position, to an open litter, or shrine, ornamented with
flowers, green leaves, and valuable cloths, or else to an
open palanquin splendidly decorated. The body is then
carried to the funeral pyre by twelve bearers.
Musical instruments are employed in the funeral pro-
cessions of the Sudras, but never in those of the higher
castes.
The two principal instruments are the long trumpet
called in Tamil tarai, and the sankha, or sangu, another no
less lugubrious instrument made out of a large sea-shell
(the conch).
As soon as a Sudra has breathed his last,
two of these tarai