Replacing Household Vessels.
After a death all the household earthen pots are broken and replaced. It has been suggested that this is due either to the belief that the ghost of the dead man is in some of them, or that the custom may have some connection with the idea of providing the ghost with utensils in the next world.208 In popular belief, however, the custom is explained by the death pollution attaching to all the family cooking vessels, which, if of metal, are purified with fire. The vessel is the home of the spirit: “At most Hindu funerals a water jar is carried round the pyre, and then dashed to the ground, apparently to show that the spirit has left its earthly home. So, the Surat Chondras set up as spirit homes large whitewashed earthen jars laid on their sides. So, to please any spirit likely to injure a crop, an earthen jar is set on a pole as the spirit’s house, and so at a wedding or other ceremonies, jars, sometimes empty, sometimes filled with water, are piled as homes for planets and other marriage gods and goddesses, that they may feel pleased and their influence be friendly.”209
We have already met with the Kalasa or sacred jar. The same idea of the pollution of earthen vessels prevailed among the Hebrews, when an earthen vessel remaining in a tent in which a person died was considered impure for seven days.210