CREMATION, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
It is not my intention to describe the funeral rites of the ancient Greeks and Romans &c.,[176] because the practices of some Eastern nations at the present day somewhat resemble them, and it will consequently be sufficient to refer to some of these. Moreover, descriptions of cremation in classic times may be met with in every encyclopædia. Full details of these ancient forms of sepulture will also be found in numerous antiquarian works.[177]
For a similar reason I will not describe the burning of the bodies of Williams and Shelley.[178] The ceremony was moreover somewhat harrowing owing to the impossibility of obtaining proper materials for the purpose. It will be more interesting to the reader to furnish him with a description of a still later instance of cremation; I allude to the burning of the body of the Rajah of Kellapore at Florence in 1873, and I quote here the description of the affair as given by Dr. Pini in the Gazetta di Milano.
At the hour of midnight the mortal remains of the Indian prince were carried to the banks of the river. The funereal pile consisted of a heap of wood, about five feet square, firmly fixed and secured to the ground by seven bars of iron. A second heap of wood was thrown loosely around. After certain religious ceremonies, the pile was powdered with camphor and other aromatic substances, and the dead rajah was laid upon it. The body was anointed with pure naphtha, the features covered by a mask of some greasy substance, and all the limbs covered with resinous matter, betel-leaves, perfumes, and powdered sandal-wood. The corpse was then covered with more layers of wood, alternated with inflammable substances, and the next of kin to the prince set fire to the pile. Although the flame was fanned by a strong wind, the body was barely consumed at seven o'clock the next morning. At ten, when the fire had almost entirely burned out, nothing remained but a heap of ashes. An Indian priest collected a small quantity from the centre of the heap; the remainder was thrown to the wind, in the direction of the current of the Arno.[179]
Let us now see how cremation is performed at the present day among the poor in India.[180] The Madras correspondent of the 'Medical Times and Gazette' thus describes the mode practised in Madras:—
The actual process of burning here is simple and effective, and well suited for people amongst whom fuel is one of the dearest of the necessaries of life, besides being subject to a tax, which has been greatly mitigated by the present governor. A bed is prepared; it is said in the old books that it should be as long as a man with his arm extended above his head, a fathom wide, and a space deep; it is also said that it ought to be on rising ground, so that the water poured on the ashes may easily run off. On this bed is laid a layer of wood and 'bratties'—that is, cakes of dried cow-dung, which in this country is the most frequent form of fuel. The body, which is brought on an open bier, is laid on this, and covered with fresh layers of wood and bratties. Fire is set to the heap, which is then covered with a thinnish layer of earth. The process, which lasts altogether twelve hours or more, is divisible into two portions:—First, the fire is allowed to char and smoulder, out of the free access of air, till all the heap becomes a glowing red-hot mass, just as in charcoal-burning or ballast-burning at home. But after the fire has penetrated the whole heap it is poked up, the air admitted, and there is a thorough blazing fire, which goes on burning till all the fuel is turned into ashes, amongst which are discernible some of the hardest bones—as the malar, temporal, and shafts of the long bones—semi-vitrefied.
The above describes a funeral of the poorer kind, but in a late number of the 'Bombay Times' appears an interesting account of the burning of the body of Mr. Veneyekras Juggonath Sunkersett, an eminent citizen of that city.
The funeral procession from the house of the deceased was sufficiently large to demand a special report. Not less than a thousand persons figured therein, 'every family in the caste having furnished one or two of its male members to swell the melancholy cortège.' Bareheaded, and dressed in white garments, the procession marched slowly on. First came an array of link-bearers; then, also surrounded by lighted torches, and borne aloft on the shoulders of six men, the corpse was carried, preceded by Brahmin priests chanting a monotonous dirge. Arrived at the burning-ground—a spot to which admittance is made difficult—the body, lying on a bier, was deposited on the ground, the torch-bearers forming a circle around. The bier consisted simply of split bamboo sides and arms, with a rush bottom, and was subsequently broken to pieces and burnt. The object of depositing the bier on the ground was to allow all present to take a last look at the features of their friend and leader. Many simply salaamed, others knelt and appeared to pray, while others indulged in tumultuous ululation.
During the time occupied in these last farewells, the men attached to the burning-ground had been busily employed in erecting the funeral-pyre; and the corpse was at length lifted off the bier, and placed on the pile. Officiating Brahmins then anointed the body with a mixture of which the principal constituent was ghee. Hard by was piled a heap of fragrant sandal-wood, split into thin faggots, and these the relatives of the deceased laid one by one upon the body, the priests all the while reciting prayers for the dead.[181] This ended, the servitors of the dead-ground built up the pyre to its proper height with common firewood. All being ready for the final ceremony, the Brahmins lit a small fire of sandal-wood, and, having consecrated it, gave a flaming brand to each of the kinsmen present, whose duty it was to light the pyre. Then the flames shot up into the air, a canopy of smoke overhung the spot, and all was over. The mourners dispersed, and by midnight nothing remained of our well-known citizen but a handful of white ashes and a few calcined bones.
During the past year the remains of the Hon. Narayan Wassadeo, a member of the Legislative Council of Bombay, were solemnly burnt on the burning-ground at Sonapore, and the ceremony is thus described in the 'Times of India,' Aug. 6, 1874:—