Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T13:57:08.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Orientation of the Dead in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The question of the orientation of the dead has recently engaged the attention of anthropologists, the term in this connexion meaning, not, as the derivation of the word implies, a position in the direction of the west, but in some specified relation to the points of the compass. For example, Mr. W. J. Perry, discarding what he terms the “solar theory” of Sir E. Tylor, reverts to the explanation suggested by Herbert Spencer, that the beliefs concerning the direction of the Other World depend on the migrations of the tribes, the Land of the Dead being identified with the region from which a certain tribe has, or believes it has, come. Mr. Perry's investigation is confined to Indonesia, and Sir J. G. Frazer quotes a case from British New Guinea in which the dead are buried on their sides with their heads pointing in the direction from which the totem clan of the deceased is believed to have come originally.

Type
Indian Section
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1924

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 163 note 1 New English Dictionary, s.v.

page 163 note 2 Journal Royal Anthropological Institute, xliv, 1914, pp. 281 seqq.Google Scholar, with the criticism of Professor Forbes, H. O., Man, xvi, 1916, pp. 7 seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Folk-Lore, xxvi, 1915, pp. 138 seqq.Google Scholar

page 163 note 3 Primitive Culture, 4th ed., 1903, vol. ii, pp. 48, 421Google Scholar.

page 163 note 4 Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed., 1893, vol. i, pp. 201 seq.Google Scholar

page 163 note 5 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i, p. 208.

page 164 note 1 Dowson, J., Classical Dictionary, pp. 92Google Scholar. Sharif, Ja'far, Islām in India, Oxford, 1921, pp. 278seqq.Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 See, for instance, Playfair, A., The Garos, p. 111Google Scholar. Shakespear, J., The Lushei-Kuki Clans, p. 35Google Scholar. Hartland, E. S., The Legend of Perseus, vol. ii, 1895, pp. 326 seqq.Google Scholar

page 165 note 1 The Angami Nagas, 414 seqq. Perry, , Folk-Lore, xxvi, 1915, p. 151Google Scholar.

page 165 note 2 The Sema Nagas, p. 247.

page 165 note 3 Furness, W. H., Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. xxxii, 1902, p. 463Google Scholar.

page 165 note 4 [Sir]Scott, J. G., Hardiman, J. P., Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, pt. i, vol. ii, p. 82Google Scholar; pt. i, vol. i, p. 522.

page 166 note 1 Bradley-Birt, F. B., Chota Nagpore, 1903, pp. 60 seq.Google Scholar

page 166 note 2 Gurdon, P. R. T., The Khasis, 2nd ed., 1914, p. 147Google Scholar.

page 166 note 3 SirRobertson, G. S., The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, 1896, pp. 645 seqq.Google Scholar

page 166 note 4 Macdonell, A. A. and Keith, A. B., A Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, i, 84, 186Google Scholar. Muir, J., Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i, 1858, pp. 186 seq.Google Scholar; ii, 1860, pp. 332 seqq. Farnell, L. R., The Cults of the Greek States, iv, 99Google Scholar. Hastings, J., Encyclopœdia of Religion and Ethics, vii, 68 seq.Google Scholar

page 166 note 5 Rose, H. A., A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, Lahore, 1919, pp. 278 seqq., 401Google Scholar.

page 167 note 1 A. Hillebrandt, Hastings, op. cit., vol. iv, p. 475.

page 168 note 1 Dubois, Abbé J. A., Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies, 3rd ed., Oxford, 1906, pp. 571 seq.Google ScholarZiegenbalg, B., Genealogy of the South-Indian Gods, Madras, 1869, pp. 107 seqq.Google ScholarGupte, B. A., Hindu Holidays and Ceremonials, 2nd ed., Calcutta, 1919, pp. 144 seqq.Google Scholar

page 168 note 2 Colebrooke, H. T., Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus, 1858, pp. 98 seq.Google Scholar

page 168 note 3 Ward, W., View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, Serampore, 1818, vol. i, p. 198Google Scholar. MrsStevenson, S., The Rites of the Twice-Born, Oxford, 1920, pp. 143, 150Google Scholar.

page 169 note 1 Padfield, J. E., The Hindu at Home, Madras, 1896, p. 270Google Scholar.

page 169 note 2 Iyer, L. K. Anantha Krishna, Cochin Tribes and Castes, vol. ii, Madras, 1912, p. 92Google Scholar. Thurston, E., Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Madras, 1909, vol. iv, 372Google Scholar; v, 351, 360.

page 169 note 3 Francis, W., District Gazetteer, Madura, Madras, 1906, vol. i, p. 93Google Scholar; Thurston, op. cit., iii, 61, 83.

page 170 note 1 Russell, R. V., Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, 1916, vol. iii, 42 seqq., 47 seqq., 89Google Scholar. Grant, C., Gazetteer of the Central Provinces, Nāgpur, 1870, Introd., p. cixGoogle Scholar.

page 170 note 2 Bose, P. N., Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1890, p. 282Google Scholar.

page 170 note 3 Tod, J., Annals of Rajasthan, Oxford, 1919, vol. ii, pp. 843, 1003Google Scholar.

page 170 note 4 Thurston, op. cit., vol. iv, 285. Hastings, op. cit., vol. viii, p. 74. Nath, Radha Govinda, The Yogis of Bengal, Calcutta, 1909, p. 16Google Scholar. [Sir]Risley, H., Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 1891, vol. i, p. 359Google Scholar.

page 170 note 5 Rose, op. cit., vol. ii, 1911, p. 299.Panjab Notes and Queries, vol. ii, 18841885, p. 20Google Scholar.

page 171 note 1 ProfessorRapson, E. J., Cambridge History of India, vol. i, 1922, p. 43Google Scholar.

page 172 note 1 Russell, op. cit., ii, 412.

page 172 note 2 Dalton, E. T., Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, 158Google Scholar. [Sir]Elliott, C. A., Settlement Report Hoshangabad District, 1867, p. 262Google Scholar. Russell, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 564.

page 172 note 3 Russell, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 255, 328, 482. For the Rautiās, , [Sir]Risley, H., Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vol. ii, pp. 209 seqq.Google Scholar

page 172 note 4 Sir J. G. Frazer, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 175 seq.

page 172 note 5 Enthoven, R. E., Tribes and Castes of Bombay, i, 32, 187Google Scholar; iii, 230.

page 172 note 6 Russell, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 12.

page 173 note 1 Lewin, T. H., The Wild Races of South-Eastern India, 184 seq.Google ScholarId., The Hill Tracts of Chittagong, 74.

page 173 note 2 [Sir]Gait, E., Census Report, Assam, 1891, vol. i, p. 252Google Scholar, but this fact does not seem to be noticed by Col. Shakespear, J. in his Lushei-Kuki Clans, 1912Google Scholar.

page 173 note 3 Gurdon, P. R. T., The Khasis, 2nd ed., 1914, p. 133Google Scholar.

page 173 note 4 Sherring, C. A., “Notes on the Bhotias of Almora and British Garhwāl”: Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i, No. 7, pp. 109Google Scholar seq. Id., Western Tibet and the British Borderland, 123 seq.