Note 370 — Chapter I
Reading edition
A dying person, two or three minutes before his death, is placed on the ground, which is first purified with cow-dung-plaster.370 For ten days after a death, the members of the deceased’s household and his relatives sleep on beds spread on the bare ground.371 If the demise be very affecting, the nearest relatives sleep on the floor for periods which may extend to three months, six months, or even for a year, and sometimes the penance lasts for their whole lives.370