CHAPTER IX.

An Account of the Rites for the Dying.

1. Garuda said: You have spoken fully about the gifts for the diseased. Tell now, O Lord, of the rites for the dying.

2. The Blessed Lord said: Listen, O Tarksya, and I will explain the rites for one leaving the body, and by what rites men after death reach a good condition.

3-5. When, by the effects of karma, the embodied leaves his ordinary body, then, near to a holy basil tree one should make a ring with cowdung.

Next, having scattered sesamum seeds, he should strew darbha-grass, and then have the S'alagrama stone placed on the cleaned platform.

Liberation is certain for the being who dies near the S'alagrama stone, which removes all ills and sins,

6-9 Where is the shade of the holy basil tree, which removes the pain of being, there is always liberation for the dying, difficult to obtain by gifts.

The house in which the holy basil tree is enshrined is like a holy bathing place,--the servants of Yama do not come to it.

Yama is not able to see him who gives up his life while having a holy basil shoot, though he have hundreds of sins.

The man who dies with a leaf of it in his mouth, upon a seat of sesamum and darbha-grass, goes to the city of Visnu, unfailingly, though he have no son.

10-13. Sesamums, darbha-grasses and holy basil are three holy things, and they prevent an ailing man from going to a miserable condition.

Because the sesamum is produced from My sweat it is holy; hence Asuras, Danavas and Daityas run away from sesamum.

The darbha grasses, my riches, O Tarkshya, are produced from my hairs; hence by the mere touch of them men attain heaven.

Brahma is seated at the root of the kus'a-grass; in the middle of the kus'a is Janardana; at the tip of the kus'a is S'ankaradeva --three shining ones are seated in the kus'a grass.

14-15. Hence kus'a, fire, mantras, holy basil; Brahmins and cows do not lose their purity by being used again and again.

Darbha-grass becomes unclean with rice-balls; Brahmins, by eating the offerings for the departed; mantras, cows and holy basil, when basely used; and fire, on a cremation-ground.

16-20. One should lay the dying man on the ground cleaned with cow-dung and spread over with darbha-grasses; not support him in the air.

Brahma, Visnu, Rudra all the shining ones, and Sacrificial Fire stand upon the ring,---therefore should one make a ring.

The ground must he pure everywhere, with no stain to be seen. If there is a stain it should be cleaned away by further plastering.

Demons, goblins, elementals, spooks, and the followers of Yama enter an impure place, and a cot above the ground.

Hence without this ring one should not perform oblations to the fire, S'raddha, the feeding of Brahmins, the worship of the Holy Ones; nor place the dying man upon the ground.