When a person is near unto death, they take him off his bed and lay him on the ground and shave his head, except in the case of a married woman, and wash the body. The Bráhmans read some prayers over him and alms are given. They then plaster the ground with cowdung and strew it over with green grass and lay him down at full length face upwards, with his head to the north and his feet to the south. If a river or tank be hard by, they place him up to his middle in water. When his dissolution is at hand they put into his mouth Ganges water, gold, ruby, diamond and pearl, and give away a cow in charity, and place upon his breast a leaf of the Tulaśí (Ocymum sanctum)* which they hold sacred, and draw the sectarial mark on his forehead with a particular kind of earth.*
When he expires, his youngest son,* his brother, and his pupil and particular friends shave their heads and beards. Some defer this till the tenth day. The body dressed in its loin-cloth is wrapped in a sheet. The corpse of a married woman is dressed in the clothes she wore in life. The body is borne to the river side and a funeral pile of Palása-wood (Butea frondosa) is formed, upon which the body is laid. Prayers are read over ghee, which is put into the mouth and a few grains of gold are put into the eyes, nostrils, ears and other apertures. It is advisable that the son should set fire to the pile, otherwise the youngest brother of the deceased or, failing him, the eldest. All his wives deck themselves out and with cheerful countenances are burnt together with him in their embrace.* A pile of lignum aloes and sandal-wood is fired for those who are wealthy. The wives are first advised not to give their bodies to the flames.
This mode of expressing grief among Hindu women applies to five classes:—(1). Those who expire on learning the death of their husbands and are burnt by their relations. (2). Those who out of affection for their husbands voluntarily consign themselves to the flames. (3). Who from fear of reproach surrender themselves to be burnt. (4). Who undergo this death regarding it as sanctioned by custom. (5). Who against their will are forced into the fire by their relatives.
If an ascetic (Sannyásin) dies or a child that has not yet teethed, the body is consigned to earth or launched into the river, and they do not burn those who disbelieve the Vedas or who are not bound by the rules of any of the four castes, nor a thief, nor a woman who has murdered her husband, nor an evil liver, nor a drunkard.
If the corpse cannot be found, an effigy of it is made with flour and leaves of the Butea frondosa and reeds covered with deer-skin, a cocoanut serving for the head. Over this prayers are said and it is then burnt.
A pregnant woman is not suffered to be burnt till after her delivery. If the man dies on a journey, his wives burn themselves with his garments or whatever else may belong to him. Some women whom their relations have dissuaded from burning themselves, or whom their good sense has convinced that burning is a fictitious grief, live afterwards in such unhappiness that death becomes preferable.
On the day on which the corpse is burnt, the relations and friends repair to the riverside and undo their hair, put on the sacred string across the other shoulder, and bathe themselves and place two handfuls of sesame-seed on the bank. They then collect in any open space and the friends of the deceased after a consolatory address to the mourners, accompany them home, the younger members of the family walking in front and the elders following. When they reach the door of the house, they chew a bit of Nímba leaf* (Hind. Ním, Melia Azadirachta) and then enter.
On the fourth day after the death of a Bráhman, the fifth after the death of a Kshatriya, the ninth and tenth after that of a Vaiśya and ´Súdra respectively, the person who had set fire to the funeral pile, proceeds to the place, performs some ceremonies, and collecting the ashes and remnants of bones together, throws them into the Ganges. If the river be at any distance, he places them in a vessel and buries them in the jungle, and, at a convenient time, exhumes them, puts them into a bag of deer-skin and conveys them to the stream, and concludes with certain ceremonies.
If the deceased is a Bráhman, all his relations for ten days sleep on the ground on a bed of grass and eat only what is sent to them, or what may be procured from the market (cooking nothing for themselves).
During ten days, the person who had fired the pile cooks some rice and milk and makes an offering of it as nourishment to the new body of the deceased. When the natural body dies, the soul takes a subtle frame which they call Preta.* Their belief is that while it is invested with this body, it cannot enter Paradise, and during the space of ten days this body continues in being. Subsequently, on the conclusion of certain ceremonies, it abandons this form and assumes another fitted for Paradise, and by the performance of manifold works, it finally receives its heavenly body. For other castes the time of detention (in the Preta) continues throughout their respective Sútaka* periods.
Some further ceremonies for Bráhmans and others take place on the eleventh and twelfth days also.
If a Bráhman dies out of his own house and information of his death is received within ten days of it, his family during the remaining period of those days, continue unclean. If the news arrives after the ten days, they are unclean for three days, but his son, at whatever time he hears of it, is unclean for ten days. If the death take place before investiture with the sacred string, or (if a child) before it has teethed, or of seven months, the impurity lasts one day, and is removed by bathing. If the deceased child be above this age up to two years old, the impurity lasts one day and night: from the time of cutting the hair* to that of investiture with the sacred thread, three days and nights. For the death of a daughter up to ten years of age, ablution suffices to purify. After that age till the time of proposal when she is betrothed before marriage, there is one day's impurity. After betrothal, the father's family and that of the suitor are unclean for three days.