The activities of the mourning period.

The cremation is considered the last of the samskara s. What now follows continues the effect of the samskara s in effecting and signaling an individual's movement from one culturally defined stage of being to another, but now the locus of the individual's life, now his or her life in death, is removed progressively further and further from house, household, and city.

Following the cremation there is an elaborate cycle of postdeath ceremonies and procedures. Those taking place in the ten days immediately following the death and ending when the family is purified of its postdeath pollution are called the dasa kriya , the "ten works."^[64] In the subsequent months and years there is another series of special ceremonies on various anniversaries of the death, as well as the special observances incumbent on or optional for bereaved people during the course of the festival year, which we have noted in our discussions of the annual cycle. We will only outline these ceremonies here, noting some details that bear on other aspects of this study.

The dasa kriya period revolves around the activities of the kriya putra and the evolution of the spirit of the deceased person. The kriya putra remains on the cheli alone or, sometimes, accompanied by a male member of the household. During this period the kriya putra wears only a loincloth, wrapping himself in a shawl if it is cold, cooks his own food, sleeps on a straw or wool mat on the ground, and does not shave. He is unable to touch anyone except the man who may keep him company, and is thus even more polluted than the household and phuki members who also have been polluted by the death.

On each day of the mourning period the kriya putra boils rice at home and carries it to the river, taking care not to touch anyone. In upper-level thars the kriya putra is accompanied in his trips to the river by a man from the borderline clean Bha thar who will later, on the tenth day, consume rice that has been in contact with the corpse to ensure that the spirit will take a human form (chap. 10). The Bha carries flowers, colored pigment, and other materials that are to be used in worship. The Bha is also supposed to instruct the kriya putra at the riverside in the proper steps of the worship.^[65] The Bha makes a linga^[*] out of a kind of clay that comes from some distance below the earth to represent Siva as the deity "Hatakesvara^[*] ,"^[66] a god said to dwell under the earth. Offerings of milk and water are poured into small terracotta dishes placed on either side of the linga^[*] . A clay waterpot with a hole in the bottom is placed on a tripod over the linga^[*] and an "umbrella" formed from kusa grass is placed in the pot. Each morning the kriya putra takes river water and puts it into the clay pot, where it slowly drips through the hole onto the linga^[*] . It is said that the Siva linga^[*] represents the deceased person. The water is said to cool the spirit of the dead person, which is in its preta form.^[67] Now the kriya putra forms the rice into three bails—called pya(n) in Newari or pinda^[*] in Sanskrit^[68] —as offerings to (in the following order) the crow, the dog, and, finally, the preta . The pinda^[*] offered to the preta is both an offering to and a representation of the dead person, as is the case with pindas^[*] in all the subsequent death ceremonies.^[69] The three pindas^[*] are then given various offerings. Finally, the kriya putra throws the crow pinda^[*] across the river as food for the crows, puts the dog pinda^[*] on the near river bank as food for the dogs, and throws the preta pinda^[*] onto the mud in the center of the river (if the river is low as it is during much of the year), where it is supposed to be picked up and supposedly eaten by the same Po(n) who was also responsible for taking the funeral cloths from the cremation grounds.

The kriya putra then returns to his home. He cooks his own food, restricting himself to one meal a day. He is supposed to spend his time there reading sections of the Garuda^[*] Purana^[*] dealing with life after death.

On the fourth day of the mourning period close friends, relatives, and members of the death guthi come to the cheli to talk with the kriya putra .^[70] A focal day in the course of the dasa kriya is, depending on the thar , the fifth or seventh day.^[71] On this day a married-out daughter of the household (or, if there is none, of the phuki ) returns to the house, and goes to the cheli , where she boils rice. She forms the rice into three portions, and places them in three bamboo baskets. Two of the portions are simply lumps (in contrast to the variously shaped pinda^[*] ), but the third is often formed into the shape of a body. This third por-

tion is given to a Jugi who will come to the house on this day, the same Jugi who earlier gathered the death clothes at the chwasa . This offering is called the "giving of the fifth-day (or seventh-day) body." The three portions of rice are offerings, but the portion offered to the Jugi, which is called the preta bali , the preta sacrificial offering, also represents the preta itself. The Jugi's act might be thought to represent an agent in the forming of the preta's body, as are in that case explicitly, the activities of the Bha on the tenth day after death. One of the other two portions is brought by the daughter to the riverside, where it is left as an offering to the crows. Late at night the third portion, called the pakha ja , or the "boiled rice of the roof eaves,"^[72] is brought from the cheli and placed outside of the house at the pikha lakhu boundary. It is left there for a while, sometimes only a few minutes, and sometimes throughout the night. It is said that the hungry preta is waiting outside the house to be fed. Household members keep watch in order to prevent dogs from disturbing the rice. Then, in a further distancing movement, the pakha ja is brought to the river—for upper-status thars by a Jyapu client—and thrown into it.

The kriya putra continues his daily dasa kriya activities on the fifth or seventh day, and on the following days. On the tenth day following the cremation a ceremony is held at the riverbank, an elaboration of the kriya putra's daily morning offering. The ceremony, which includes offerings of food and drink to the spirit and the construction of pindas^[*] , is the first of a long series of such ceremonies called sraddhas ,^[73] rites characterized by offerings and the making of pindas^[*] .^[74] For the upper-level thars the Bha who has attended the kriya putra on each morning is again present to help prepare and (traditionally) to direct the offerings. All members of the phuki are supposed to attend this tenth-day sraddha^[*] .

Now, in part because of the successful performance of the dasa kriya , the spirit of the dead person is said to have its full human form, and to be no longer a preta .^[75] The purification procedures that terminate the period of the dasa kriya begin at this point. These purifications are called du bya(n)nkegu , the "du " purification.^[76] At least one man and woman representing each of the phuki households is supposed to come to the river for purification. After they have all purified themselves, the kriya putra , finally, does his own purification. Other members of the phuki will be purified at home or at the house of a Nau.

After the du bya(n)kegu at the river there is a ceremony during which the kriya putra , facing west toward the setting sun, makes an offering of water and guta grass (Cynodon dactylon ) to the sun. The kriya putra's purohita stands in front of him, and thus also, to his west, and the kriya putra circumambulates him three times, "being careful not to step on the purohita's shadow." A Nau stands near by with a ceremonial mirror. He hands it to the purohita , bowing in respect, and the purohita presents it to the kriya putra , who shows the mirror to the sun, and then looks into it at himself.^[77] The other phuki members now worship the sun. Now, having become purified and having worshiped the sun, they will be able to worship (but still not touch until the time of the still-to-come sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] ) other deities.^[78] Now the purohita hands the kriya putra a set of white mourning clothes that he will wear during the following year until the first annual anniversary of the death.^[79]

At sunset on this tenth day, the du bya(n)nkegu purification having been completed earlier in the day, the kriya putrs accompanied by two or three phuki members goes to the river. They place on the riverbank on the river's far side, fragments of beaten rice (the same material that was offered to the preta just prior to cremation), two oil-lamp wicks, and some sprigs of kusa . These are offerings to the dead person who is now beginning a journey to the realm of Yama, where his or her karma -based post-death transformation will be effected. On the fifth or seventh day after death the preta had been given offerings in the cremation grounds, outside the house, and at the near bank of the river. It now moves still further off in its more human, less uncanny, ethereally embodied state.

After the river offerings have been made, substantial gifts^[80] are given to the Bha. These include the item of food that he is to eat that will aid the human formation of the spirit's ethereal and, in some accounts, its eventually reincarnated body.