The fact that in the funeral obsequies of the Rigveda the widow lies down beside the body of her deceased husband and his bow is removed from the dead man's hand, shows that both were in earlier times burnt with his body to accompany him to the next world, and a verse of the Atharva-veda calls the dying of the widow with her husband an old custom. The evidence of anthropology shows that this was a very primitive practice widely prevailing at the funerals of military chiefs, and it can be proved to go back to the Indo-European age.
The following stanza (8) from the last funeral hymn (x. 18) is addressed to the widow, who is called upon to rise from the pyre and take the hand of her new husband, doubtless a brother of the deceased, in accordance with an ancient marriage custom:—
- Rise up; come to the world of life, O woman;
- Thou liest here by one whose soul has left him.
- Come: thou hast now entered upon the wifehood
- Of this thy lord who takes thy hand and woos thee.
The speaker then, turning to the deceased man, exclaims:—
- From the dead hand I take the bow he wielded,
- To gain for us dominion, might, and glory.
- Thou there, we here, rich in heroic offspring,
- Will vanquish all assaults of every foeman.
- Approach the bosom of the earth, the mother,
- This earth extending far and most propitious:
- Young, soft as wool to bounteous givers, may she
- Preserve thee from the lap of dissolution.
- Open wide, O earth, press not heavily on him,
- Be easy of approach, hail him with kindly aid;
- As with a robe a mother hides
- Her son, so shroud this man, O earth.
