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[Footnote 22: Compare Brihan N[=a]radiya Pur[=a]na, xiv. 10, bah[=u]ni k[=a][s.][t.Jhay[=a]ntr[=a][n.Ji (torture machines) in hell. The old tale of N[=a]çiketas is retold at great length in the Var[ra]ha Pur[a=]na. The oldest Pur[=a]na, the M[=a]rkandeya, has but seven hells, a conception older than Manu's twenty-one (compare on MP. X. 80 ff., Scherman, loc. cit. p. 33), or the later lists of thousands. The Padma Pur[=a]na, with celebrates R[=a]ma, has also seven hells, and is in part old, for it especially extols Pushkara (Brahm[=a]'s lone shrine); but it recommends the taptamudra, or branding with hot iron.]
[Footnote 23: Nar. xiv. 2.)
[Footnote 24: xiv. 54 and 70.]
[Footnote 25: KP. xxii. pp, 239-241.]
[Footnote 26: As will be shown below, it is possible that this may be a ceremony first taken from the wild tribes. See the 'pole' rite described above in the epic.]
[Footnote 27: Compare for instance ib. xxviii. 68, on the strange connection of a Ç[ru]dr[=a] wife of a Guru.]
[Footnote 28: KP. xxxvi. It is of course impossible to say how much epic materials come from the literary epic and how much is drawn from popular poetry, for the vulgar had their own epoidic songs which may have treated of the same topics. Thus even a wild tribe (Gonds) is credited with an 'epic.' But such stuff was probably as worthless as are the popular songs of today.)
[Footnote 29: KP. xxx. p. 305; xxxvii. p. 352.]
[Footnote 30: ib. p. 355.]
