Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/580

508 in its waters, and while swallowing its sacred mud, is the very height of blessedness. One of the Purannas asserts that should a grasshopper, or a worm, or even a tree growing by its side, die in its waters, it would attain to final bliss. Nay, more; to illustrate the virtues of Gunga, it is related that a Brahmin who had been guilty of the greatest crimes, and had been devoured by wild beasts, sprang to life and ascended to heaven, because a crow dropped one of his bones into its stream. Hence, multitudes of the dying are brought to the banks of the river, and, regardless of their weakness and wretchedness, exposed to the glaring sun, and choked with the water and mud, until death delivers them from the persecutions of their benighted friends. Even to the commission of suicide in this stream the highest merit is attached.

Hither the bodies of the dead are brought for burning. A funeral pile is built upon the shore, and the body having been laid on it, it is kindled by the oldest son or nearest heir. When too poor to buy fuel for this purpose, the body is thrown into the river. Human corpses come floating down the stream entirely unnoticed by the throngs of boats busily going hither