| OCR Text |
Show THEY BURN THE BODIES OF THEIR DEAD IN THE OPEN AIR. I Strange and Sanitary Mode Which Haa Been Practiced by Them For Thousands of Years The Blessed State From tha Hindoo Standpoint. Although we are beginning to believe uore and more every year in cremation aid think ourselves accordingly advanced, ad-vanced, the Hindoos have practiced it 'or thousands of years. The funeral pile f a rajah sometimes costs lacs of rupees. L Hindoo body is sometimes burned irhen 3 rupees cover the entire expenses rhe rich Hindoo may be somewhat exclusive. ex-clusive. The Hindoo masses do every ihing simply and openly. They batha rat of doors, they pray out of doors, they took out of doors, they die ont of doora tnd their bodies are burned out of doors, ihere are three burning ghats in Cal-mtta. Cal-mtta. A writer to the Pall Mall Budget tel!a rery entertainingly of a visit she made dve of these three. Just as she entered into the inclosnre where a burning ghat was in full ope-ation ope-ation there was a crack a sharp retort ike a pistoL The heat had just broken hrough a dead man's skull. It was the nst human part to protest against the ixtinguishment of death. The funeral pile of a poor Hindoo ooks like an ordinary kitchen yard R-ood pile. But if you go up close to it rou discover something very like a hu-nan hu-nan form, a glowing, charred mass, dis-inguished dis-inguished from every other shape; animate ani-mate or inanimate, for the Hindoos lit-jrally lit-jrally purify their dead by fire. The jody is burned until absolutely nothing remains but a handful of ashes, ashes jvholly free from any unclean or poison-jus poison-jus matter. As the writer was closely jbsorving the glowing pile a new body jvas brought in and the rite begun. Two coolies carried the body upon a j rude litter, woven from coarse grasses ind held together by outlines of bamboo. Two of the dead man's brothers follow-sd, follow-sd, chatting pleasantly. Four Btout ticks of wood were driven upright into die ground, at the corners of an imagi-aary imagi-aary parallelogram about six feet by iwo. Between these four posts were loosely laid sticks of dry, cheap wood. When the pile was a little more than three feet high, the body was laid upon it A dirty piece of crash, of the quality the coolies wear about their loins, partly nrrapped the dead. One of the brothers itepped up and poured about four ounces if oil over the body. This insured a juicker cremation, but was something f a luxury and not a universal practice. The oil must have cost about three pica The other brother paid the coolies, who ihouldered the light, empty litter and laarched gayly out More wood was piled upon the dead, i thin stick was lighted at the other Hineral pile, which was now flaming inely, thc second pile was lighted, and Tie cremation of the newcomer was be-yun. be-yun. The two brothers appeared very interested In the igniting and decidedly pleased when it was accomplished. They fquatted down upon the ground, just so far from the pile that they might feel ihat their scant, filthy garments were airly safe from the sparks, but near waough to watch all the changing phases a the cremation and to see easily when 11 waa consummated. They untied a dirty rag from about a ncaall bundle one of them had brought jt tth them They took out a small earth 2t bowl. It was clean and shiniug, and so was the brass chattee each lifted from hi filthily turbaned head. The chat tees held water. The bowl held curry and rite. They fell to eating with gusto. Aud, pray, why not? They were eating co live. Their brother was burning to iiv to live in Hindoo paradise. From the Hindoo point of view this state was far more blessed. The cremation which was in full blast whn the writer arrived was finally soropieieu. xwo uistiuui) jviiius ux uaima were left The human ashes were care- I fully gathered into an old chattea The authorities do not allow those ashes to be thrown into the river, and they are never thrown there in the presence of Europeans. The ashes of the wood were swppt swiftly away. The bits of wood not uite burned were frugally collected to Ve utilized in the next pile. The correspondent also tells of a visit to burning ghat after sundown. "Night," she goes on, "is the time of Hii doo leisure, as indeed it is of most primitive peoples. The inclosnre was crowded with burning piles. "We sailed down the Ganges. The outlines of the attendants cf the dead na& of the funeral pile were sharply alliouetted against the blask background of the dark night by the flames of tha grtwsome death fires. And from that part of the shore sacred to Hindoo worship wor-ship came the shrieking and the songs of many thousand half mad devotees. "In a primitive part of interior India I once saw a maharajah's funeral pila It had cost a positive iortuna It waa bud.lt of expensive spicy woods and saturated sat-urated with costly oils. It was richly gilded, and the dead was wrapped in embroidered silken sheets. For miles the air was sweet and pungent and thick with the perfumed smoka I remember having thought when a child tht the liberally sweetest experience I evsr had was the attending of a high mass at St. Peter's in Rome. But now I must own that the sweetest smell I ever smelled was the burning of a maharajU' fa |
