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THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
'But persons of greater quality are burned, and that with ceremony. When they are dead they lay them out, and put a cloth over their privy parts; and then wash the body, by taking half a dozen pitchers of water and pouring upon it. Then they cover him with a linen cloth, and so carry him forth to burning. This is when they burn the body speedily. But otherwise they cut down a tree that may be proper for their purpose, and hollow it like a hog-trough, and put the body, being disembowelled and embalmed, into it, filling up all about with pepper, and so let it lie in the house until it be the king's command to carry it out to the burning. For that they dare not do without the king's order if the person deceased be a courtier. Sometimes the king gives no order in a great while; it may be not at all therefore, in such cases, that the body may not take up house-room or annoy them, they dig a hole in the floor of their house, and put hollowed tree and all in, and cover it. If afterwards the king commands to burn the body, they take it up again, in obedience to the king-otherwise there it lies.
'Their order for burning is this: if the body be not thus put into a trough or hollow tree, it is laid upon one of his bedsteads, which is a great honour among them. This bedstead with the body on it, or hollowed tree with the body in it, is fastened with poles, and carried upon men's shoulders unto the place of burning, which is some eminent place in the fields, or highways, or where else they please. There they lay it upon a pile of wood some two or three feet high;-then they pile up more wood upon the corpse, lying thus on the bedstead or in the trough. Over all they have a kind of canopy built (if he be a person of very high quality), covered at top, hung about with painted cloth, and bunches of cocoa-nuts, and green boughs; and so fire is put to it. After all is burnt to ashes, they sweep together the ashes into the manner of a sugar-loaf, and hedge the place round from wild beasts breaking in, and they will sow herbs there. Thus I saw the king's uncle, the chief tirinanx' (who was, as it were, the chief primate of all the
1 Knox's way of spelling Terunnânsê, that is, Thera.
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| SR No. | 007674 |
| Book Title | Dhammapada |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Max Muller |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1881 |
| Total Pages | 2540 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 45 MB |