gods with the
demons (Namuci, Cambara, Vala, Vritra, Prahl[=a]da, Naraka), etc.
(iii. 168).

Turning now to some of the newer traits in the epic, one notices first
that, while the old sacrifices still obtain, especially the
horse-sacrifice, the _r[=a]jas[=u]ya_ and the less meritorious
_v[=a]japeya,_ together with the monthly and seasonal sacrifices,
there is in practice a leaning rather to new sacrifices, and a new
cult. The _soma_ is scarce, and the _p[=u]tika_ plant is accepted as
its substitute (iii. 35. 33) in a matter-of-course way, as if this
substitution, permitted of old by law, were now common. The sacrifice
of the widow is recognized, in the case of the wives of kings, as a
means of obtaining bliss for a woman,[41] for the religion of the epic
is not entirely careless of woman. Somewhat new, however, is the
self-immolation of a man upon the pyre of his son. Such a case is
recorded in iii. 137. 19. where a father burns his son's body, and
then himself enters the fire. New also, of course, are the sectarian
festivals and sacrifices; and pronounced is the gain in the godhead of
priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has
long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods,
although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.[42] The king,
too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the
epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,[43] and so are the
parents to the son;[44] while, since the elder brother is the same
with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships
the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; for higher even than
that of the priest is the husband's divinity (III. 206). The wife's
religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with
sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she
has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (III. 205. 23), and
to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the
epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy
watering-places, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For
it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or
'visit this holy pool') he or she is freed from sin" (so in III. 82.
33: "Every sin committed since birth by man or woman is absolved by
bathing in 'holy Pushkara"). It may be remarked that as a general
thing the deities invoked by women are, by predilection, female
divin