Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c6.s5.23

c6.s5.23

The limit of human life, as in older times,⁹ was believed to be one hundred or at the most hundred and twenty years.¹⁰ As to the disposal of the dead, we have a clear indication of the funeral pyre and the burning of the corpses. There were cemeteries (susānaṃ) with gates.¹¹ At the funeral the women, probably, wore red garments, had their hair dishevelled and torches in their hands.¹² Four men carried the corpse to the cemetery.¹³ The dead body was placed on the wooden pile and, offerings of perfumes and flowers being made, fire was set to it.¹⁴ Thus the general custom was of cremation and not of burial. Among the various causes of death to beings, these are mentioned: some die sunk in the sea, or seized therein by ravenous fish, some falling in the Ganges, or seized by crocodiles, some falling from a tree or pierced by a thorn, some struck by weapons of divers kinds, some by eating poison or hanging or falling from a precipice or by extreme cold or attacked by diseases of divers kinds.¹ Out of the various modes of ending life, that by drowning oneself is clearly instanced in the bankrupt of the *Ruru jātaka*.² We do not however hear of condemnation or approval of different forms of suicide. It seems cases of suicide were very rare.