oor (Manu, iv. 73;
Gaut. 9. 32, etc.), and we think it has a moral significance, for this
_a-dv[=a]ra_ (non-door) rule occurs again in the epic in just the
circumstances we have described. The heroes in this case are not
afraid of their foe, who is in his town. They insult every one as they
approach, but they find some other way of getting in than by passing
through the gate, for the express purpose of being morally able to
make the king fight with them after they have entered his city. And
they cite the rule 'according to law,' which is that one may enter his
foe's house by _a-dv[=a]ra,_ 'not by door,' but his friend's house
only 'by door.' As they have not entered 'by door' they say they may
refuse the hospitality which the king urges them to accept, and so
they kill him (ii. 21. 14, 53). Stepping in through the door seems,
therefore, to be a tacit agreement that one will not injure the
resident.[29]

In the epic, again, fetishism is found. The student of the 'science of
war,' in order to obtain his teacher's knowledge when the latter is
away, makes a clay image of the preceptor and worships this clay idol,
practicing arms before it (i. 132. 33). Here too is embalmed the
belief that man's life may be bound up with that of some inanimate
thing, and the man perishes with the destruction of his psychic
prototype (iii. 135). The old ordeals of fire and water are
recognized. "Fire does not burn the house of good men." "If (as this
man asserts) he is Varuna's son, then let him enter water and let us
see if he will drown" (iii. 134. 27 ff.). A human sacrifice is
performed (iii. 127); although the priest who performs it is cast into
hell (_ib_. 128).[30] The teaching in regard to hells is about the
same with that already explained in connection with the law-books, but
the more definite physical interpretation of hell as a hole in the
ground (_garta_, just as in the Rig Veda) is retained. Agastya sees
his ancestors 'in a hole,' which they call 'a hell' (_n[=i]ray[=a]_).
This is evidently the hell known to the law-punsters and epic (i. 74.
39) as _puttra_, 'the _put_ hell' from which the son (_putra_)
delivers (_tra_). For these ancestors are in the 'hole' because
Agastya, their descendant, has not done his duty and begotten sons (i.
45. 13; iii. 96. 15); one son being 'no son' according to law and epic
(i. 100. 68), and all the merit of sacrifice being equal to only
one-sixteenth of that obtained by having a son. The teaching