w-giver. This was the result of his
labors: the Rig Veda orders the Brahman to place the widow side by side
with the corpse, and then, after the performance of certain rites, to
lead her down from the funeral pyre and to sing the following verse from
Grhya Sutra:

Arise, O woman! return to the world of the living!
Having gone to sleep by the dead, awake again!
Long enough thou hast been a faithful wife
To the one who made thee mother of his children.

Then those present at the burning were to rub their eyes with collyrium,
and the Brahman to address to them the following verse:

Approach, you married women, not widows,
With your husbands bring ghi and butter.
Let the mothers go up to the womb first,
Dressed in festive garments and costly adornments.

The line before the last was misinterpreted by the Brahmans in the most
skillful way. In Sanskrit it reads as follows:

Arohantu janayo yonim agre.....

Yonina agre literally means to the womb first. Having changed only
one letter of the last word agre, "first," in Sanskrit [script], the
Brahmans wrote instead agneh, "fire's," in Sanskrit [script], and so
acquired the right to send the wretched widows yonina agneh--to the womb
of fire. It is difficult to find on the face of the world another such
fiendish deception.

The Vedas never permitted the burning of the widows, and there is a
place in Taittiriya-Aranyaka, of the Yajur Veda, where the brother of
the deceased, or his disciple, or even a trusted friend, is recommended
to say to the widow, whilst the pyre is set on fire: "Arise, O woman! do
not lie down any more beside the lifeless corpse; return to the world
of the living, and become the wife of the one who holds you by the hand,
and is willing to be your husband." This verse shows that during the
Vedic period the remarriage of widows was allowed. Besides, in several
places in the ancient books, pointed out to us by Swami Dayanand, we
found orders to the widows "to keep the ashes of the husband for several
months after his death and to perform over them certain final rituals."

However, in spite of the scandal created by Professor Wilson's
discovery, and of the fact that the Brahmans were put to shame before
the double authority of the Vedas and of Manu, the custom of centuries
proved so strong that some pious Hindu women still burn themselves
whenever they can. Not more than two years ag