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The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India - Volume 2

William Crooke

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .fault of an animal victim at least two cakes of rice or flour, so that he may throw them to the dogs of Yama, which would otherwise bar his passage,189 and the same idea constantly appears in the folk-tales where the hero takes some food with him which he flings to the fierce beasts which prevent him from gaining the water of life or whatever may have been the test imposed upon him. The use of pulse in the funeral rites depends upon the same principle, and in the Greek belief the dead carried vegetables with them to hell, either to win the right of passage or as provisions for the road.

[Contents] Articles left with the Corpse.

Hence too comes the practice of burning with the corpse the articles which the dead man was in the habit of using. They rise with the fumes of the pyre and solace him in the world of spirits. The Kos told Colonel Dalton that the reason of this was that they were unwilling to derive any immediate benefit by the death. . . Read More