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So far as the writer has been able to discover, there seems in all ages to have been, in the non-professional mind at least, a peculiar aversion and horror of dead bodies of human beings. The laws of Thena, enacted, according to Sir Wm. Jones, from 880 to 1,280 years before Christ (Sir Wm. Jones' Works, pp. 79-80), contain many provisions respecting uncleanness and purification therefrom, by reason of the dead, and it seems everywhere assumed that dead bodies are unclean. Thus, among many other provisions, we find the following: “He who has touched a chandala, a woman in her courses, an outcast cast for deadly sin, a new-born child, a corpse, or one who has touched a corpse, is made pure y bathing.” —Laws of Thena, ch. 5, § 85.
“Should a Brahmin touch a human bone moist with oil, he is purified by bathing; if it be not