Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/53

Rh to the burning ground has arrived, the body has to be washed and decorated. The religious rites for the preparation of the sacred fire to ignite the funeral pyre have to be performed near the corpse. The daughters and other close female relatives of the dead man bring water in pots and wash and decorate the body, while the sons perform the religious ceremony and prepare the sacred fire. In the meantime the construction of the bier goes on outside the house. When everything is ready, the leave-taking ceremony takes place. This consists in the dead man’s palm being rubbed with as many two-anna pieces as there are close relatives, and these pieces being then presented to those relatives, who keep them as long as they live. When this is concluded, the corpse is placed on a bier of green palm leaves, the grandsons standing ready with lighted torches to accompany the bier to the burning ground. Young women stay at home but elderly ones always accompany the corpse. Arrived at the burning ground, elaborate religious ceremonies are gone through, at the end of each of which a large fee is paid to religious Brahmans,