From a late investigation, it appears, that the number {143} of women who sacrifice themselves within thirty miles round Calcutta every year, is, on an average, upwards of two hundred. The Pundits have already been called on to produce the sanction of their Shasters for this custom. The passages exhibited are vague and general in their meaning, and differently interpreted by the same casts. Some sacred verses commend the practice, but none command it; and the Pundits refer once more to _custom_. They have, however, intimated, that if government will pass a regulation, amercing by fine every Brahmin who attends a burning, or every Zemindar who permits him to attend it, the practice cannot possibly long continue; for that the ceremony, unsanctified by the presence of the priests, will lose its dignity and consequence in the eyes of the people. The civilized world may expect soon to hear of the abolition of this opprobrium of a Christian administration, the female sacrifice; which has subsisted, to our certain knowledge, since the time of Alexander the Great.--CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN. This practice, however, was manifestly unknown when the Institutes of Menu were written. Instructions are there given for the conduct of a widow: "Let her," it is said, "emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruit; but let her not, when her {144} lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. Let her continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue, which have been followed by such women as were devoted to one only husband. Many thousands of Brahmins, having avoided sensuality from their early youth, and having left no issue in their families, have ascended nevertheless to heaven; and, like those abstemious men, a virtuous wife ascends to heaven, though she have no child, if, after the decease of her lord, she devote herself to pious austerity: but a widow, who, from a wish to bear children, slights her deceased husband by marrying again, brings disgrace on herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord."--_Inst. of Menu_, ch. 5, 157-161. Second marriages were permitted to men.--_Ibid_. 167, 8-9. _Lo! Arvalan appears._--II. p. 11. Many believe that some souls are sent back to the spot where their bodies were burnt, or where their ashes are preserved, to wait there until the new bodies they are destined to occupy be ready for their reception. This appears to correspond with an opinion of Plato, which, {145} with many other tenets of that philosopher, was adopted by the early Christians; and an ordinance of the Romish church is still extant, prohibiting having lights or making merriment in church-yards at night, lest they should disturb the souls that might come thither.--CRAWFURD.