Doha 170

He had the king’s body washed in accordance with the Vedic rites and caused a most splendid funeral bier to be prepared for him. Clasping the feet of his mothers, Bharata prevented them (from ascending the funeral pile); they all stayed behind in the hope of seeing Śrī Rāma. (1) There arrived many loads of sandal-wood and aloes and diverse other excellent aromatic herbs of innumerable varieties. The pile was raised in an artistic way on the bank of the Sarayū river, and looked like a lovely ladder reaching heaven. (2) In this way all the rites of cremation were gone through and then all bathed observing due rituals and offered a handful of water and sesame seeds to the departed soul. After ascertaining the views of all the Smṛti texts, the Vedas and the Purāṇas, Bharata performed the ceremony of Dasagātra*. (3) * The ceremony consists in offering to the departed soul a ball of boiled rice on each of the ten days following the cremation of the deceased. The Hindus believe that the agnates and certain other relations of a deceased remain impure for a number of days and get purified only after the prescribed period is over. Whatever orders the great sage Vasiṣṭha gave on a particular point, Bharata carried out all of them in a thousand ways. He bestowed all sorts of gifts on attaining purity. He gave away cows, horses, elephants and conveyances of all sorts, (4)

and, even so, thrones, ornaments and costumes, food grains, land, money and houses; and the Brāhmaṇas had all their desires fulfilled on receiving them. (170)