To get to paradise from India is an expensive thing.
Every detail connected with the matter costs something, and helps to
fatten a priest. I suppose it is quite safe to conclude that that
fire-bug is in holy orders.
Close to the cremation-ground stand a few time-worn stones which are
remembrances of the suttee. Each has a rough carving upon it,
representing a man and a woman standing or walking hand in hand, and
marks the spot where a widow went to her death by fire in the days when
the suttee flourished. Mr. Parker said that widows would burn themselves
now if the government would allow it. The family that can point to one
of these little memorials and say: "She who burned herself there was an
ancestress of ours," is envied.
It is a curious people. With them, all life seems to be sacred except
human life. Even the life of vermin is sacred, and must not be taken.
The good Jain wipes off a seat before using it, lest he cause the death
of-some valueless insect by sitting down on it. It grieves him to have
to drink water, because the provisions in his stomach may not agree with
the microbes.
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