186 THE AEAB AL-BIRUNI ON HINDU RELIGION section is inserted here on account of its direct con- nection with what has gone before in this and in the preceding chapter. ' In the most ancient times in India the bodies of the dead were exposed to the air by being thrown on the fields without any covering; sick people also were ex- posed on the fields and in the mountains, and were left there. If they died there, they had the fate just men- tioned; but if they recovered, they returned to their dwellings. Thereupon there appeared a legislator who ordered people to expose their dead to the wind. In consequence, they constructed roofed buildings with walls of rails, through which the wind blew, passing over the dead, something like the grave towers of the Zoroastrians. After the Hindus had practised this cus- tom for a long time, Narayana bade them hand the dead over to the fire, and ever since they have been in the habit of burning them, so that nothing remains of them, and every defilement, dirt, and smell is anni- hilated at once, so as to leave scarcely a trace behind. Nowadays the Slavonians, too, burn their dead, whilst the ancient Greeks seem to have had both cus- toms, that of burning and that of burying. To the former method Galen makes a distinct allusion in his commentary to the apothegms of Hippokrates where he says: " It is generally known that Asklepios was raised to the angels in a column of fire, the like of which is also related of Dionysos, Herakles, and others, who laboured for the benefit of mankind. People say that God did thus with them in order to destroy the mortal
