hich
in later times was strictly forbidden in many sects, must, when the
Sutras were written, have been fully recognized at these feasts, even
to the killing and eating of a cow.[332]

This shows that these _S_raddhas, though, possibly of later date than
the Pit_ri_ya_gn_as, belong nevertheless to a very early phase of
Indian life. And though much may have been changed in the outward form
of these ancient ancestral sacrifices, their original solemn character
has remained unchanged. Even at present, when the worship of the
ancient Devas is ridiculed by many who still take part in it, the
worship of the ancestors and the offering of _S_raddhas have
maintained much of their old sacred character. They have sometimes
been compared to the "communion" in the Christian Church, and it is
certainly true that many natives speak of their funeral and ancestral
ceremonies with a hushed voice and with real reverence. They alone
seem still to impart to their life on earth a deeper significance and
a higher prospect. I could go even a step further and express my
belief, that the absence of such services for the dead and of
ancestral commemorations is a real loss in our own religion. Almost
every religion recognizes them as tokens of a loving memory offered to
a father, to a mother, or even to a child, and though in many
countries they may have proved a source of superstition, there runs
through them all a deep well of living human faith that ought never to
be allowed to perish. The early Christian Church had to sanction the
ancient prayers for the Souls of the Departed, and in more southern
countries the services on All Saints' and on All Souls' Day continue
to satisfy a craving of the human heart which must be satisfied in
every religion.[333] We, in the North, shrink from these open
manifestations of grief, but our hearts know often a deeper
bitterness; nay, there would seem to be a higher truth than we at
first imagine in the belief of the ancients that the souls of our
beloved ones leave us no rest, unless they are appeased by daily
prayers, or, better still, by daily acts of goodness in remembrance of
them.[334]

But there is still another Beyond that found expression in the
ancient religion of India. Besides the Devas or Gods, and besides the
Pit_ri_s or Fathers, there was a third world, without which the
ancient religion of India could not have become what we see it in the
Veda. That third Beyond was what the poets of the Veda