Note 30 — Chapter XIV · THE FALSE CHARGE.

The Kabiraj. means that the sick man should be taken to the banks of the Ganges, that he might die happily with his feet in the water. People are often taken to the river bank when very ill, and left in a small hut, which will be erected for them there, where, if they are rich enough to afford it, a Pandit is engaged to watch the pulse; and when the pulse becomes so feeble as to show death to be at hand, the Brahmin in attendance takes the sick person to the river and places the feet in the water: the sick person will then die happy in the full assurance of salvation. Death is often actually hastened by the zeal with which the relatives of sick persons hurry them to the river-side, or, if they are too far from a river, outside the house, for it is regarded as an happy augury if the sick man dies being able to think of the sacred waters or even speak of them with his latest breath. Indeed the phrase; He died conscious is practically equivalent to, He died happy, in the full assurance of salvation. Benares is regarded as so holy a place to die in that consciousness at death is not regarded as a sine qua non of a happy death: the mere fact of dying in Benares is of itself sufficient to ensure the feeling of happiness and assurance.