conserve the individuality of the several localities in respect of the details, for example, of their nuptial and funeral customs; so that the local diversities are sometimes expressly mentioned (uccāvacā janapadadharmā grāmadharmāç ca: AGS. i. 71). Astonishingly conservative as India is {see my remarks in Karpūramañjari, p. 206, ¶2, p. 231, note 2), it can nevertheless not be doubtful that her customs have changed in the time from the date of the hymns to that of the ritual books. Evidently, there are divers general considerations which militate strongly against much dogmatism in the treatment of these matters.[1]
Integer vitae as a Christian funeral-hymn.—During the last twenty-four years, I have often been called to the University Chapel to pay the last tribute of respect to one or another departed colleague or friend. On such occasions, it frequently happens that the chapel choir sings the first two stanzas of the Horatian ode (i. 22), integer vitae scelerisque purus, to the solemn and stately music of Friedrich Ferdinand Flemming. Indeed, so frequent is the employment of these words and this music, that one might almost call it a part of the "Funeral Office after the Harvard Use." The original occasion of the ode, and the relation of Horace to Aristius Fuscus to whom it is addressed, are fairly well known. The lofty moral sentiment of the first two stanzas, however seriously Horace may have entertained it, is doubtless uttered in this connection in a tone of mock-solemnity. Even this fact need not mar for us the tender associations made possible by the intrinsic appropriateness of these two pre-Christian stanzas for their employment in a Christian liturgy of the twentieth century. But suppose for a moment that the choir were to continue singing on to the end, even to Lalagen aniabo, dulce loquentem! what palpable, what monstrous ineptitude! If only the first two stanzas were extant, and not the remaining four also, we might never even suspect Horace of any arrière-pensée in writing them; and if we were to interpret them simply in the light of their modern ritual use, how far we should be from apprehending their original connection and motive!
Secondary adaptation of mantras to incongruous ritual uses.—Let no one say that this case is no fair parallel to what may have happened in India. On the contrary: instances—in no wise doubtful and not a whit less striking—of secondary adaptation of a mantra to similarly incongruous uses in the ritual may there be found in plenty. This secondary association of a given mantra with a given practice has often been
- ↑ Caland's sketch of the funeral rites is a most praiseworthy and interesting one, and his description of the practices which he there sets forth in orderly and lucid sequence is well worth the while: but his descriptions are taken from many sources differing widely in place and time; and it is on many grounds improbable that the ritual as he there depicts it was ever carried out in any given place at any given time.
