At Bombay, Kali is worshipped at Sitali, and at other places, as Devi, Mato., and Amoor Amma. At Chanda and Lanji she has temples in which human victims were offered almost up to the middle of the 19th century. The victim was taken to the temple in the evening and shut up, and in the morning he was found dead, the dread goddess having ' shown her power by coming in the night and sucldng his blood.' At Dantewada, in Bastar, about 60 miles S.W. of Jagdalpur, near the junction of tho Sankani and Dankani, tribu taries of the Indrawati, is a shrine of Danteswari, at which, about .s.n. 1830, it is said that upwards of 25 full-grown men were immolated on a single occasion by a raja of Bastar. Since then, adds Mr. Hislop, numerous complaints reached the Nagpur authorities of the continuance of the practice, up to the time of the annexation by the British. Captain Clune, writing in 1828, says that when a rana of Mewar had occasion to pass the Mahi river, an individual from a tribe descended from a Chauhan Rajput and a Bhil mother was sacrificed, his throat being cut and his body thrown into the river. This sacrifice
had been once performed in the lifetime of the rana then reigning. Dr. Mason relates that when, about A.D. 1780, the gates of the new city of Tavoy were erected, a criminal was put into each post hole, and the massive posts thrown in upon him, so that his blood gushed up at the sides. Ilis spirit was supposed to become a Nat, that would hover about the pat. , inflicting evil on all who came near, thereby contributing to the defence of the town.
Human sacrifices and the oriaaments of the victim are alluded to in the Toy Cart or Mrich clii-kati, and in the Malati and Madhava, two ancient Sanskrit dramas. Madhava comes on the scene when the Aghora Ghauta is preparing to offer Malati, and he exclaims : 'What luckless chance is this, that such a maid With crimson garb and garland, like a victim Adorned for sacrifice, should be the captive Of impious wretches !' In like manner, the ordinary victims of the Greeks were adorned with crowns and garlands, as thus, in the Clouds, in the scene between Socrates and Strepsiades: