CHAPTER XI.

An Account of the Ten-Days' Ceremonies.

1. Garuda said: Tell me, O Kes'ava, what good results follow from the performance of the ten-days' rite, and who should perform it if there is no son.

2 The Blessed Lord said: Listen, O Tarksya, and I will tell you about the ten-days' ceremony; having done which, a good son is released from the hereditary debt.

3-8. The son, taking calm courage, should offer rice-balls to the father, refraining from tears,

Because the departed has inevitably to drink the bitter tears let fall by his relatives, and they should not weep when sorrow is useless.

Although there be sorrowing day and night for thousands of years, the man who is dead may never be seen.

Death is certain for those who are born, and birth is certain for the dead. This is inevitable and therefore a wise man should not grieve over it.

There is no way out, either human or divine; the being who has come under the sway of death must be born again here.

If there were a way of averting the inevitable, then Nala, Rama and Yudishthira would not have experienced miseries.

9-11. Nobody should form an excessive attachment to anybody; the body is only a dream, what then of other persons'?

As a traveller, resorting to some shady place, rests awhile and then departs again; so is the coming together of beings.

The good things eaten in the morning are destroyed by evening; how can there be permanence in a body which is sustained by these foods?

12-17. Having considered this, which removes misery, and given up sorrow arising from ignorance, the son should perform the rites.

If there is no son the wife, should perform them, and if no wife the brother; or a Brahmin's pupil or a proper kinsman should perform them.

The ten-days' ceremonies, for the man who has no son, should be performed by the sons or grandsons of his younger or his elder brother, O Bird;

Manu declared that if, of brothers of the same father, only one has a son, they are all considered, on account of that son, to have a son.

If a man has several wives, but only one of them has a son, all of them have a son, on account of that son.

For all who have no sons a friend may offer the rice-balls. The rites not be neglected. If there is nobody else, the family priest may do them.

18. A man or a woman who performs the rites for a friend, by this sacrament for the helpless departed, obtains the fruit of tens of millions of sacrifices.

19-21. The ten-days' ceremony for the father should be performed by the son, O Bird. Even if the eldest son dies, the father should not, through excessive affection, perform it.

Although there be many sons, only one shall perform the ten-days' ceremony, the rice-ball offerings, and the other sixteen S'raddhas,--