Nd and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last reaches the dread…
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 2 (of 2) · selected passage 27
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
nd and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last reaches the dread river Vaitaranî, which rolls its flood of abominations between him and the other shore
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlynd and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last reaches the dread river Vaitaranî, which rolls its flood of abominations between him and the other shore. So, when a Hindu dies, a lamp made of flour is placed in his hands to light his ghost to the realm of Yama. Devout people believe that the spirit takes three hundred and sixty days to accomplish the journey, so an offering of that number of lamps is made. In order, also, to help him on his way, they feed a Brâhman every day for a year; if the deceased was a woman, a Brâhmanî is fed. The lamps are lighted facing the south, and this is the only occasion on which this is done, because the south is the realm of death, and no one will sleep or have their house door opening towards that ill-omened quarter of the sky.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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