We know from the Rigveda the old sentences used at burial, which were supposed to avert death from the living, the prayers that the soul of the dead might be taken up into Yama's heaven of light (p. 62 ff.). We saw with what reverence the living thought of the spirits of their forefathers; how careful the Aryas were to offer gifts to them, so that their food and clothing might never fail. It was customary to sprinkle water for the spirits of the forefathers, and in the land of the Ganges to scatter grains of rice; at the funeral feast of the dead, kept by the families on each new moon, three furrows were made, in which every member of the family placed three cakes, for the father, the grandfather, and great-grandfather; the cakes were then covered with locks of wool, and the ancestors invoked to clothe themselves with it. On the death-day of any member of the family, or a certain time after, the family assembled, in order to offer fruits and flesh to his spirit. There was now no longer any light heaven of Yama; he was the prince of the hot hell (p. 137), where souls are tormented after death, and then born again to a new life in plants, animals, and men: the chief object now was to attain the end of all life and regeneration by a return into Brahman. So far as they could, the Brahmans reconciled the old and new conceptions. The heaven of Indra (p. 138) was substituted for the old heaven of Yama. It was not the pure heaven of Brahman, but a higher, brighter world. The soul of the virtuous passes into this outer heaven; the soul of the sinner sinks into hell. But the merit of good works is consumed, as the guilt of sin is expiated, by the lapse of time, by a shorter or longer participation in the joys of the heaven of Indra, a shorter or longer torment in hell. Then begins for the souls who have thus received only the first reward of their lives a series of regenerations. The old chants of burial could only be rendered in the sense of the new system by the most violent interpretations. The belief in the spirits of the ancestors, and the pious worship of them, had struck roots far too deep and ancient into the heart of the nation for the Brahmans to think of removing these services, the libations to the spirits, or the funeral feast of the families, at which they invoked their ancestors to come down and enjoy themselves at the banquet with their descendants. Libation and feast continued to exist without molestation. The Brahmans contented themselves with ordaining that at the sacrifice to the dead, the fire Dakshina, _i.e._ the fire to the right, was indispensable. When Yama's abode had been removed to the hot south, the sacrificial fires for his kingdom must burn to the right, _i.e._ towards the south. The theory of the priests then declared these sacrifices to the dead to be indispensable in order to liberate the souls out of certain spaces in hell; they also laid down the rule that a Brahman should always be present at the funeral feast.