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198 the bed and laid upon wheat-straw which has been spread on the ground. The dead body is carried to the funeral pyre on a wooden frame and placed on it with the head to the north, five Sikhs or more being present. The nearest relative takes a torch, and after walking three times round the pile of wood sets fire to it under the head. The earliest record of burning the dead is among the ancient Scythians, with whom the idea of purification by fire was universal.

Just as in the middle ages the strong nations of the West emerged from the bonds of religious superstition, so the Sikh reformatory movement took its rise at the same time, breaking away from the thraldom of the Brahman priesthood. It had its origin in small and peaceful beginnings on the part of humble preachers,—a low-class movement, conversion, not conquest, being its object. But cruel persecution gave it the impetus which culminated in secular power and kingship. The religion having