Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 539

UNLUCKY DAYS FOR DYING
499
Wealthy Sudras do not stop here. They proceed on the
day to a new ceremony, on which occasion they
strive to rival the Brahmins in magnificence.
And the
Brahmins, since they enjoy all the honour and profit of the
feast, take care not to show any jealousy.
The funeral ceremonies of the Sudras vary much in
different districts.
In some places Hindus of this caste
bury their dead instead of burning them. In other places
they throw the body into the river, deliberately feigning
the river to be the Ganges.
This kind of burial, the most
expeditious and least costly of any, is common enough
among the sects of Siva and the poorer classes of Sudras.
The solemn occasion when man shuffles off his mortal
coil naturally offers ample matter for speculation to the
imaginative Hindus. They attribute to the moon a sort
of Zodiac composed of twenty-seven constellations, each
of which presides at one of the twenty-seven days of its
periodical course.
The last five are all more or less fatal.
Woe to the relatives of him who dies in the period when
the moon travels through them
The body of the deceased,
in this case, cannot be removed from the house either by
the door or the window. It is absolutely necessary to
make an opening through the wall for this purpose. And
this is not all.
To escape the unfortunate accidents which
would inevitably follow such an untimely death, the most
prudent course is to abandon the house for six months, or
thirtieth
!
at least three months, according to the degree of the malign
influence of the constellation which was in the ascendant
on the day of death \ At the end of this time they remove
the bushes with which they stuffed up the front door of the
ill-fated house where the death occurred.
The remotest
corners of the building are carefully purified, a purification
which can be completed only by the intervention of a
purohita, who has to be called in, and of course paid for.
Finally, a meal must be given to the Brahmins and presents
must be made to them after that the occupants will have
nothing else to fear.
A death happening on Saturday entails almost equally
serious inconveniences. It is a hundred to one in that case
;
1
a
Xowadays
man
dies.
it
is
Ed.
customary simply to shut up the room
in
which