Hindu Medicine c8.187

c8.187

For this purpose one should select a body which is complete in all its parts. It should be the body of someone who had neither been excessively old, nor one who died of poison, nor of a protracted disease. Having removed all excremental matter from the entrails, the body should be wrapped in rush or bast or grass or hemp, and placed in a (reed-or wicker-) cage. Having firmly secured the latter in a hidden spot, in a river with a strong current, the body should be allowed to decompose. After an interval of seven days the thoroughly decomposed body should be taken out and very slowly scrubbed with a whisk made of grass-roots or hair or bamboo or bast. At the same time, every part of the body, great or small, external or internal, beginning with the skin, should be examined with the eye, one after another, as it becomes disclosed in the course of the process of scrubbing.