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MODERN HINDUISM. To such an evt into goodnaire, by which means it is supposed to reach those demands om it is intended. Brahmans repeat these cererule, unies frequently in the first year after death, and after n wards annually. The title to property is most intimately
bound up with the funeral rites. Only a son or near male relative is properly qualified to perform them; but if males fail, females or other heirs may undertake the duty. Large promises are made in the Puranas and other sacred books to those who properly perform the Shradda rites, including the forgiveness of all their own sins. The details, like those of all religious matters in so religious a people, are far too lengthy to be given.
What about the influence of Hindu religious ideas upon their moral condition ? Many writers agree that this is Mono state bound up with the position of women, and that
aver until they are freed and elevated no permanent improvement can be made. Here is an extract from a Hindu lady's book on the duties of wives. “The husband is the wife's religion, the wife's sole business, the wife's Condition of all-in-all. The wife should meditate on her
wives. husband as Brahma. For her, all pilgrimages should be concentrated on her husband's foot. The command of a husband is as obligatory as a precept of the Vedas. To a chaste wife her husband is her god. When the husband is pleased, Brahma is pleased. The husband is the wife's guru, her honour, the giver of her happiness, the bestower of fortune, righteousness, and heaven, her deliverer from sorrow and from sin."
Of course the seclusion of women is not generally possible among the lower classes, but it is often aimed at Position of by them; and the full consequences of the
women. belief that the birth of a girl is a misfortune follow most Indian women through life. On the contrary, Hindu women pray, make pilgrimages, fast, and make costly offerings, that they may have sons who can by performing the Shradda rites deliver their ancestors from sufferings after death. All a girl's worship is directed towards obtaining good husbands and sons, by a series of rites which we cannot particularise; nor can we enlarge upon the evils of girl marriages (at the age of
