Of these the hells, animals, pretas,1 gods and men. the hells are to be made lowest; then the animals and pretas; and above, the gods and men-i.e. the four continents, viz., Púrvavideha, Aparagodáníya, Uttarakuru, and Jambudvipa. In the centre are to be made desire, hatred and stupid indifference: desire in the form of a dove, hatred in that of a snake, stupid indifference in that of a hog. And images of Buddha are to be made pointing out the circle of Nirvána. Beings are to be represented as being born in a supernatural way, as by the machinery of a water-wheel, falling from one state and being produced in another. All round is to be represented the twelve-fold circle of causation in the regular and in the reverse order. Everything is to be represented as devoured by Transitoriness, and the two gáthás are to be written there, 3 'Begin, come out, be zealous in the doctrine of Buddha, Shake off the army of death as an elephant a hut of reeds. He who shall walk unfaltering in the Doctrine and Discipline, Leaving behind birth and mundane existence, shall make an end of pain. 66 'The mendicants carried out Buddha's words, and made the wheel with five divisions. The Brahmans and householders came and asked, "Sir, what is this engraved here?" They reply, Sirs, even we do not know." Buddha said, "Let a certain mendicant be appointed to stand in the chamber of the gate, who shall show it to all the Brahmans and householders who come from time to time." 1 Ghosts or goblins who suffer from perpetual hunger. CHAPTER III. ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. I HAVE said that the rules of life contained in the most ancient of the sacred law-books of the Hindus are strongly affected by two systems of religious belief which were probably at one time independent of one another. Although welded together by the Hindu sacerdotal lawyers, the purgation of sin by posthumous punishment in a series of hells, and the purgation of sin by transmigration from body to body, are distinct solutions of the same problem. The breach of the rules set forth in the law-books afflicts the lawbreaker with a special taint, which, unless he be cleansed from it by proper penances in his lifetime, will cling to his spirit after death, and can only then be purged away by far severer expiations. Two separate views of the life after death would appear to have contributed the theory of successive special Purgatories, and the theory of Transmigration, to the maturer Hindu system which has joined them together. But besides the traces of this two-fold religious speculation, there is plain evidence of yet a third, and perhaps a still older religion, standing quite by itself, in these treatises. This is the Worship of Ancestors, which has shaped the entire Hindu law of Inheritance. The connection between AncestorWorship and Inheritance is not, however, peculiar to the Hindus. The most ancient law of a considerable number of the communities which have contributed most to civilisation shows us the performance of some part of this worship as a duty incumbent on expectant heirs and as the condition of their succession. This rude and primitive belief has thus very strongly influenced the branch of jurisprudence which, as linking the generations each to each, is of the greatest importance to all advancing societies. Ancestor-worship is not here to be understood in the sense in which the expression has usually been taken by scholars. It is not the cult of some longdescended and generally fabulous ancestor, of some Hero, the name-giving progenitor of a Race, a Nation, a Tribe, a House or a Family; an Ion, a Romulus, or an Eumolpus. Nor, again, can it be visibly connected with the superstitious reverence of savages for their Totem, even though it symbolise to them the living creature from which they conceive themselves to have sprung. In the case before us the ancestors sought to be propitiated by sacrifices and prayers are ancestors actually remembered, or, at all events, capable of being remembered by the worshipper. Proximity in time is essential to the worship of which I am speaking. There are signs that, according to the early ideas of many communitiescommunities, for example, so far removed from one another as the Hindus and the Irish-a man living as a member of a Joint Household or Family could at most expect to see at some time during life three generations above him and three generations below him. In accordance with this expectation, the ancestors worshipped are three: the father first, then the grandfather, and then the great-grandfather. The reverence paid to remoter ancestors, not personally remembered, may be believed to be a later off-growth of these ideas. Their original character, and the nature of the feelings associated with them, may be gathered from the account of its own ancestor-worship which Canon Callaway (apud Tylor, Primitive Culture,' ii. 106) attributes to a group of South African tribes. 'Although they worship the many Amatongo (ancestral spirits) of their tribe, making a great fence around them for protection, yet their father is before all others when they worship the Amatongo. Their father is a great treasure to them even when he is dead; and those who have grown up, knew him thoroughly, his gentleness and his bravery. Black people do not worship all Amatongo indifferently-that is, all the dead of their tribe. Speaking generally, the head of each house is worshipped by the children of that house, for they do not know the ancients who are dead. But their father, whom they knew, is the head by whom they begin and end in their prayer, for they knew him best. We do not know, they say, why he should regard others besides us he will regard us only.' 'Manes-worship,' says Mr. Tylor ('Primitive Culture,' ii. 108), 'is one of the great branches of the religion of mankind. Its principles are not difficult to understand, for they plainly keep up the social relations of the living world. The dead ancestor, now passed into a deity, goes on protecting his family and receiving from them suit and service as of old. The dead chief still watches over his own tribe, still holds his authority, by helping friends and harming enemies, still rewards the right and sharply punishes the wrong.' Ancestor-worship, the worship of father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, has among the Hindus a most elaborate liturgy and ritual, of which the outlines are given in the law-books, and with special fulness in the Book of Vishnu. In the eye of the ancient Hindu sacerdotal lawyer, the whole law of Inheritance is dependent on its accurate observance. What is more remarkable is that the same close interdependence of ritual and inheritance exists in the eye of the modern Anglo-Indian Judge, who, after long ages, strives to interpret the old books and to apply their doctrine to the case before him. There are few more |