Professor Macdonell and Dr. Keith, however, do not share Professor Oldenberg's view in this connection.[17] They hold that the epithet _Agni-dagdhah_, “burnt with fire”, “applies to the dead who were burned on the funeral pyre”; the other custom being burial—_An-agni-dagdhah_, “not burnt with fire”. They also refer to _Paroptah_, “casting out”, and _Uddhitah_, “Exposure of the dead”, which are expressions of doubtful meaning. These authorities add: “Burial was clearly not rare in the Rigvedic period: a whole hymn (x, 18) describes the ritual attending it. The dead man was buried apparently in full attire, with his bow in his hand, and probably at one time his wife was immolated to accompany him.... But in the Vedic period both customs appear in a modified form: the son takes the bow from the hand of the dead man, and the widow is led away from her dead husband by his brother or nearest kinsman. A stone is set up between the dead and the living to separate them.” [17] _Vedic Index of Names and Subjects_, A. A. Macdonell and A. B. Keith, Vol. I, pp. 8, 9 (1912). The Persian fire-worshippers, on the other hand, did not cremate their dead, but exposed them on “towers of silence” to be devoured by vultures, like their modern-day representatives the Parsees, who migrated into India after displacement by the Mohammedans. In Persia the sacred fire was called Atar,[18] and was identified with the supreme deity Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd). [18] Compared with the Latin _atrium_, “the room that contained the hearthfire”. Agni is cognate with the Latin _ignis_, cf. Lithuanian, _ugnis szwenta_, “holy fire”—_Early Religious Poetry of Persia_, Professor Moulton, pp. 38, 39. Agni of the Vedic Age is the messenger between gods and men; he conducts the deities to the sacrifice and the souls of the cremated dead to Paradise; he is also the twin brother of Indra. Now, it is of interest to note, in considering the racial significance of burial rites, that cremation was not practised by the western representatives of the Brown race. In pre-Dynastic Egypt the dead were interred as in Babylon,[19] with food vessels, &c. Neolithic man in Europe also favoured crouched burials, and this practice obtained all through the Bronze Age. [19] The theory that certain Babylonian graves show traces of cremation has been abandoned.—_A History of Sumer and Akkad_, L. W. King, pp. 20, 21 (1910).