:

[Footnote 401: The population of India (about 315 millions) is larger
than that of Europe without Russia.]

[Footnote 402: But compare the English poet

"Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
... but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all
I should know what God and man is."]

[Footnote 403: Efforts are now being made by Hindus to suppress this
institution.]

[Footnote 404: In the Vedic funeral ceremonies the wife lies down by
her dead husband and is called back to the world of the living which
points to an earlier form of the rite where she died with him. But
even at this period, those who did not follow the Vedic customs may
have killed widows with their husbands (see too Ath. Veda, XII. 3),
and later, the invaders from Central Asia probably reinforced the
usage. The much-abused Tantras forbid it.]

[Footnote 405: For the history of the Ramayana and Mahabharata and
the dates assignable to the different periods of growth, see
Winternitz, _Gesch. Ind. Lit._ vol. I. p. 403 and p. 439. Also
Hopkins' _Great Epic of India_, p. 397. The two poems had assumed
something like their present form in the second and fourth centuries
A.D. respectively. These are probably the latest dates for any
substantial additions or alterations and there is considerable
evidence that poems called Bharata and Ramayana were well known early
in the Christian era. Thus in Asvaghosha's Sutralankara (story XXIV)
they are mentioned as warlike poems inculcating unbuddhist views. The
Ramayana is mentioned in the Mahavibhasha and was known to Vasubandhu
(_J.R.A.S._ 1907, p. 99). A Cambojan inscription dating from the first
years of the seventh century records arrangements made for the
recitation of the Ramayana, Purana and complete (asesha) Bharata,
which implies that they were known in India considerably earlier. See
Barth, _Inscrip. Sanscrites de Cambodge_, pp. 29-31. The Mahabharata
itself admits that it is the result of gradual growth for in the
opening section it says that the Bharata consists of 8,800 verses,
24,000 verses and 100,000 verses.]

[Footnote 406: Hardy, _Indische Religionsgeschichte_, p. 101.]

[Footnote 407: But some of these latter sacrifice images made of dough
instead of living animals.]

[Footnote 408: It is said that the Agnishtoma was performed in Benares
in 1898, and in the last few years I am told that one or two Vedic
sacrifices have been off