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the Açvins' feats in rejuvenating (iii. 123); the combats of the gods with the demons (Namuci, Çambara, Vala, Vritra, Prahl[=a]da, Naraka), etc. (iii. 168).
Turning now to some of the newer traits in the epic, one notices first that, while the old sacrifices still obtain, especially the horse-sacrifice, the r[=a]jas[=ulya and the less meritorious v[=aljapeya, together with the monthly and seasonal sacrifices, there is in practice a leaning rather to new sacrifices, and a new cult. The soma is scarce, and the p[=ustika plant is accepted as its substitute (iii. 35. 33) in a matter-of-course way, as if this substitution, permitted of old by law, were now common. The sacrifice of the widow is recognized, in the case of the wives of kings, as a means of obtaining bliss for a woman,[41] for the religion of the epic is not entirely careless of woman. Somewhat new, however, is the self-immolation of a man upon the pyre of his son. Such a case is recorded in iii. 137. 19. where a father burns his son's body, and then himself enters the fire. New also, of course, are the sectarian festivals and sacrifices, and pronounced is the gain in the godhead of priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods, although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.[42] The king, too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,[43] and so are the parents to the son;[44] while, since the elder brother is the same with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; for higher even than that of the priest is the husband's divinity (III. 206). The wife's religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (III. 205. 23), and to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy wateringplaces, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or 'visit this holy pool) he or she is freed from sin" (so in III. 82. 33: "Every sin committed since birth by man or woman is absolved by bathing in 'holy Pushkara"). It may be remarked that as a general thing the deities invoked by women are, by predilection, female divinities, some of them being mere abstractions, while 'the Creator' is often the only god in the woman's list, except, of
