[84] Idem, ibid. i. 174. Dr. Rivers says (Todas, p. 370) that, among the Todas, a widower is not allowed to eat rice nor drink milk, and that on every return of the day of the week on which his wife died he takes no food in the morning but only has his evening meal. The same holds good for a widow.
[85] Bose, The Hindoos as they are, pp. 244, 254 sq.
[86] Gautama, xiv. 39. Institutes of Vishnu, xix. 15.
[87] de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol. ii. book) i. 651.
The custom of fasting after a death has been ascribed to different causes by different writers. Mr. Spencer believes that it has resulted from the habit of making excessive provision for the dead.[88] But although among some peoples the funeral offerings no doubt are so extensive as to reduce the survivors to poverty and starvation,[89] I have met with no statement to the effect that they are anxious to give to the deceased all the eatables which they possess, or that the mourning fast is a matter of actual necessity. It is always restricted to some fixed period, often to a few days only, and it prevails among many peoples who have never been known to be profuse in their sacrifices to the dead. With reference to the Chinese, Dr. de Groot maintains that the mourners originally fasted with a view to being able to sacrifice so much the more at the tomb; and he bases this conclusion on the fact that the articles of food which were forbidden till the end of the deepest mourning were the very same as those which in ancient China played the principal part at every burial sacrifice.[90] But this prohibition may also perhaps be due to a belief that the offering of certain victuals to the dead pollutes all food belonging to the same species.
[88] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 261 sqq.
[89] Ibid. i. 262.
[90] de Groot, op. cit., (vol. ii. book) i. 652.
Professor Wilken, again, suggests that the mourners abstain from food till they have given the dead his due, in order to show that they do not wish to keep him waiting longer than is necessary and thus make him kindly disposed towards them.[91] This explanation presupposes that the fast is immediately followed by offerings or a feast for the dead. In some instances this is expressly said to be the case;[92] the ancient Chinese, for instance, observed a special fast as an introductory rite to the sacrifices which they offered to the manes at regular periods after the demise and even after the close of the mourning.[93] But generally there is no indication of the mourning fast being an essential preliminary to a sacrifice to the dead, and in an instance mentioned above the funeral feast regularly precedes it.[94]
[91] Wilken, in Revue colonials internationale, iv. 347, 348, 350 sq. n. 32.