One may claim without proof or disproof that these are all ’primitive Aryan’; but to us it appears most probable that only the idea of the ordeal, or at most its application in the simplest forms of water and fire (and perhaps oath) is primitive Aryan, and that all else (including ordeal by conflict) is of secondary growth among the different nations.

As an offset to the later Indic tendency to lighten the severity of the ordeal may be mentioned the description of the floating-test as seen by a Chinese traveller in India in the seventh century A.D.:[44] “The accused is put into a sack and a stone is put into another sack.  The two sacks are connected by a cord and flung into deep water.  If the sack with the man sinks and the sack with the stone floats the accused is declared to be innocent.”

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Literally, transmigration, the doctrine of metempsychosis, successive births; first, as in Plato:  [Greek:  metabole tis tugchanei ousa kai metoikeois te psuche ton topon tou enthende eis allon tochon], then metabole, from ‘the other place,’ back to earth; then, with advancing speculation, fresh metabole again, and so on; a theory more or less clumsily united with the bell-doctrine.]

[Footnote 2:  Weber has lately published two monographs on the sacrifices, the R[=a]jas[=u]ya and the V[=a]japeya rites, both full of interesting details and popular features.]

[Footnote 3:  The traditional sacrifices are twenty-one in number, divided into three classes of seven each.  The formal divisions are (1) oblations of butter, milk, corn, etc.; (2) soma sacrifices; (3) animal sacrifices, regarded as part of the first two.  The sacrifice of the new and full moon is to be repeated on each occasion for thirty years.  A sattra, session, is a long sacrifice which may last a year or more.]

     [Footnote 4:  The latter are the metrical codes, a part of
     Smriti (sm[r.]ti).]

[Footnote 5:  The Five Paramount Sacrifices (Observances) are, according to Manu III. 70, study of the Veda (or teaching it); sacrifice to the Manes and to the gods; offerings of foods to ghosts (or spirits); and hospitality.]

[Footnote 6:  In the report of the Or.  Congress for 1880, p. 158 ff., Williams has a very interesting account of the daily rites of the modern orthodox Hindu (’Rig Veda in Religious Service’).]

     [Footnote 7:  We ignore here the later distinction between
     the Ved[=a]nta and S[=a]nkhya systems.  Properly speaking,
     the latter is dualistic.]

     [Footnote 8:  At a later date Buddha himself is admitted into
     the Brahmanic pantheon as an avatar of the All-god!]

     [Footnote 9:  Sometimes regarded as one with Praj[=a]pati,
     and sometimes treated as distinct from him.]