Tuesday

is sacred to Mars and Siva: Wednesday to Mercury or Budha: Thursday to Jove: Friday to Venus, and Sukra, being also the sacred day of Arabs who worshiped the Venus of Makka. Saturday belonged to Saturn, originally the god of agriculture. The colors of the Indian deities were—(1) Surya golden, (2) Vishnu silver, (8) Siva blood-stone or bronze green (4) Budha black, (5) Brihas-pat i grey, (6) Sukra tawny red, (7) Sani sapphire blue. All metals and colors had their special gods, and the pyramid of Babylon was in like manner colored in seven stages (see Architecture and Babylon). Day. Keltic. "Teutonic. —_Latin, Greet. © Sanskrit. Tamil, Hindu. —_—‘Tibetan, 1 sul Sun Sol Kuriak? Sarya © Nyayaru Aitvas Sun 2 Inn Moon Luna Selené Chandra Tingal Peer Moon 3 Mers Tuis Mars Ares Siva Sivai Mangal Mars 4 Merches Woden Mercury Hermes Budha Budban Budhvar Mercury 5 Jou Thor Jove Zeus __—Brihas-pat i es Jumarit Jupiter 6 Wener Freya Venus gaaie Sukra Veli Juma. Venus 7 Sadern Saltere Saturn Sabbat on Sani Sani Sanichar Saturn The Greek week-days are those of Christian times. The Tibetan planets are connected respectively with light, water, flame, copper, wood, gold, and earth, The Semitic names only mean “first,” “second,” ., excepting those above stated—F; riday and Saturday. Dead. The rites of the dead, whether those of burial or those of cremation, have always been solemn among civilised races. It would appear (Rig Veda, x, 11, 18, see Dr R. Mitra’s Indo Aryans, ii, p. 146) that cremation was unusual among Vedik Aryans until the time of the Yajir Veda; and that, before this—say about 1000 B.C.—the dead were buried at sacred sites. We have also ancient Buddhist graves, with small stone lingams over them; and burial was the custom of the Greeks of Mycene——about 1500 nc. It is clear from the Up an is hads (Sacred Books of the East, i) that the Aryans buried; and burial mounds existed when the Rig Veda was written. Great stones were rolled over the entrance to the tomb, le for the purpose of excluding the living than for that of preventing the dead from coming forth. ‘This indeed seems to have been one original reason for burial and cremation, Bodies were sunk deep in pits, or covered by a huge tumulus; or (as among the Norse) a stream was diverted until a mound had been made in its bed, The monumental stone served at once to warn the living of the presence of a ghost, and to “lay” the spirit beneath it. | Sometimes the body was nailed to its coffin, or to the side of the tomb, or the legs were tied, the spine broken, or the corpse actually hacked 516 Dead ‘ in pieces, lest it should come to life again as the body of some fiend, ghoul, or vampire. The same idea is found among Christians who thrust a stake through the body of a suicide. [In Egypt such mutilated corpses occur, as late as the 16th century B.c., in the antechamber of the tomb of A me no phis II,—Ep.] When the Brahman as were being written—about 800 to 500.c.—the Aryans collected the ashes, after cremating the body on the banks of a sacred stream into which they were flung, while Mantras— or Vedik verses—were being sung. A circle of stones was erected to consecrate the spot, driving death away, or enclosing polluted ground. The wife was then pulled away from the side of her dead lord with the words: “Come to the world of the living... do thou marry again”; so’that Suttee (see Sati) was a later custom. Asiras, or “ungodly” pre-Aryans, according to an Up an is had, offered neither alms nor sacrifices at death, but decked the corpse in fine garments, with perfumes (like the Jewish manner), just as we still present flowers. The Zoroastrians, on the contrary, allowed no useful or fine apparel to be placed on corpses. ‘The object of the Hindu (Rig Veda, viii, 8, 5) was “to conquer the world by dispelling this its greatest sorrow”; for which reason, perhaps, Buddha’s body was sumptuously decked—by his own desire according to his sorrowing disciples. The Kusinagari Malas (Dravidians) are said to have taken to the sacred Sala grove “five hundred suits of apparel for the ble ed Tathagata, the king of kings, and true Chakra-varta” (Suered Books of the East, XI, vi, 26, the Book of the Great Decease, translated by Dr Rhys e Davids). For six days the mourners paid honours to the body, with sweet incense and decorations, sacred dancings, hymns, and music. They then cremated the corpse, preserving the bones, which were taken to the top of the conical sacred hill of Kusi-nagar, where other rites occupied seven days. The writer of this account represents the customs of the earlier Brahmans, for in the Ramayana—written a century or so after Buddha’s death—the Rakshiisa slain by Rama is said to have demanded burial, “according to the immemorial custom of deceased Rakshiisas.,. so as to go away prosperously and attain to ever enduring worlds,” The Anglo-Saxon word birgan means “to hide away,” or “ bury.” The dead were to be securely hidden, so as not to disturb the living. Barbarian nomads covered the corpse with earth and leaves, or threw it into a wood, or some deserted spot, or into a river, that dogs, vultures, or fish might devour it. This custom still survives in the Parsi “Towers of Silence.” Earth and water, among Persians, were too sacred to be contaminated by death; hence the body was sus~ pended above earth, to be devoured, and the dog or the vulture was spoken of as one who “ cleanses the earth, and di ipates evil spirits” {see Dog). There was a time (nay it is still so, according to Captain Hinde, the Belgian officer who lived among the savages of the Upper Congo in 1890 to 1894—British A ociation Meeting, September 1895), when men devoured the dead, especially those whose qualities they admired. This writer says: “Our sentries had to be stationed over the cemeteries to prevent body snatching.... 550