The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.760

c2.s5.760

The professional singers, and also the professional ‘tellers of tales,’ appear furthermore where we have been led to expect them, namely at great festivals or in religious ceremonies.† Thus, at a wedding conducted ‘according to rule,’ we have the noisy shell and horn, and then ‘those whose business it was to sing songs, and the tellers of tales;’ with dancers also, eulogizers, and minstrels.‡ A sort of dirge seems to be sung over the fallen heroes in the great ‘scene of lamentation:’ that is to say, in the songs of lamentation there seems to be involved the custom of singing a formal dirge, or song of death and glory in honor of the fallen, and apart from the later burial rites.*