History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c9.16

v1.c9.16

It is necessary to add here the description of the funeral customs of the people recorded by Hiuen Tsang. He says (Watters, Vol. I p. 174) “At the obsequies of the deceased the relatives wail and weep, rending their clothes and tearing out their hair, striking their brows and beating their breasts. There is no distinction in the styles of mourning costume and no fixed period of mourning. There are three recognised customs for disposing of the dead. The first of these is cremation, a pyre being made on which the body is consumed. The second is water-burial, the corpse being put into a stream to float and dissolve; the third is burial in the wilds, the body being cast away in the woods to feed wild animals. Meritorious appellations are conferred on the living, the dead have no honorary distinctions. No one goes to take food in a family afflicted with death. But after the funeral, matters are again as usual. Those who attend the funeral are all regarded as unclean and they all wash outside the city wall before entering. Those who become very old or are afflicted by incurable disease, who desire to cast off humanity, are given a farewell entertainment by friends and relatives and are taken in a boat to the middle of the Ganges with music, that they may drown themselves in it, saying that they would be born in heaven. The Buddhist brethren are forbidden to wail aloud. On the death of a parent they read a service of gratitude ‘their following the departed is securing bliss in the other world.’”