In 1883, the Indian papers reported the self sacrifice of a Banya family of twelve persons in Kattyawar, to propitiate the gods.
About the year 1877, in the rnonth of May, Soomar Bhartee, a Sanyasi Gosain from Benares, settled in a Hop. temple in the village of Mulka pur, in the Vishalghur territory of the Kolhapur State, and along with a lingayat Wani, sacrificed Ballya, a little boy, 12 years of ag,e, as an offering to Siva (Mahadeo), to obtain a revelation where hidden treasure was to be found.
The British Indian authorites have been unceas ing in their efforts to check infanticide. It has been practised chiefly by the Rajput races, who destroyed their newborn daughters to avoid the great expenses of their marriag,es. Several of the tribes acted thus, but the Jhareja of Cutch exceeded all the others. The Indian Government in 1871 ascertained the villages in which the male children exceeded the girls in number, and placed such places under strict supervision, with com pulsory registration of births. In the census of 1881, in the entire population of British India, there were 129,941,851 men and boys, and 123,949,970 girls and women ; but in Rajputana the males were 5,544,665, and the females 4,723,727, fewer by 820,938.
It has been customary, from unknown times, along the banks of the Ganges, for ailing, dying men, particularly the aged, to be taken to the river side to expire. They would sometimes for days be there awaiting death, and repeated instances occurred of their death being caused by the relatives filling the mouth with water from the river, or the clay of its banks. With all Hindus it is usual at the death-agony to fill the mouth of the dying person with the fluid of the panchagavya, but the exposure of their sick on the river banks could only hasten the fatal event.
The Charan and the Bhot (Bard), semi-religious tribes of Rajputana, until recent years were employed as guarantees for the safety of individual travellers, and also as convoys for caravans of merchandise. Their sacred character gave them the influence which they exercised in behalf of those under their care, but if pushed to extremity they would wound and even destroy their families and themselves, so that their death might be on the robbers.
Until British supremacy, the Hindus of Northern India, in order to extort a debt, would erect a pile of wood, called a Koor, placing on it a cow or an old woman, and set fire to the pile, and sacrifice the victim. The sacrifice was snp posed to involve in great sin the person whose conduct forced the constructor of the Koor to adopt this mode of obtaining his money, During the religious convulsions from which the Aryan Hindus have suffered, the writings of some of their sects have put forward quite opposing views as to human sacrifices.
In the Brahma Purana, every Naramedha, or man-sacrifice, is expressly forbidden ; and in the fifth book of the Bhagavat, Sir William Jones has pointed out the following emphatic svords: ' —411iliatever men in this world sacrifice human victims, and whatever women eat the flesh of male cattle, those men and those WOMC11 shall I the animals here slain torment in the mansions of Yama ; and, like slaughtering giants, having cleaved their limbs with axes, shall quaff their blood.'—As. Res. iii. p. 260.
In the Acharya Bralimana, translated by Roth, it is related that Ilarichandm had been married to a hundred wives, and yet there was no man child born to him. At tho suggestion of Narada. a sage, he went to Varuna, and promised that if his prayers were heard, and a son granted to him, he would offer him up in sacrifice to the king. Accordingly, in due time, a son was born, Wil0 WAS called Rohita. Varuna wanted to keep Ilarichandra to his promise, but the latter put forth various excuses till Rohita grew up. And then Roliita objected, and fled to the woods, where he wandered for six years, until he fell in with the rishi Agastya. The rishi had three sons, and he promised to Rohita his second, Suna sepha, on receipt of 100 cows. But another difficulty occurred, for no one would bind the victim until Rohita gave 200 cows more. Suna sepha, unwilling to be sacrificed, interceded first with Prajapati, then with Agni, and was released, but not before Stmasepha was bound to the sacrificial post, and his father whittling his sword approaching to kill him, on which Sunasepha exclaimed, They will really kill me, as if I was not a man.' No religious rite can be more minutely ordered and detailed than this is in the Kalika Parana, the sanguinaxy chapter of which has been trans lated by Mr. Blaquiere, and given in the fifth volume of the Asiatic Researches, Art. xxiii., and al well as the ceremonies, the implements, prayers, etc., used on these horrid occasions, are minutely described and recited. In this article, premising that Siva is supposed to address his sons, the Bhairava, initiating them in these terrible mysteries, occurs : The flesh of the antelope and the rhino ceros give my beloved ' (i.e. the goddess Kali) delight for 500 years.' By a human sacrifice, attended by the forms laid down, Devi is pleased 1000 years, and by a sacrifice of three men, 100,000 years. By human flesh, Camachya, Chandica, and Bhairava, who assume my shape, are pleased 1000 years. .An oblation of blood which has been rendered pure by holy tests, is equal to ambrosia ; the head and flesh also afford much delight to tho goddess Chandica." Blood drawn from the offerer's own body is looked upon as a proper oblation to the goddess Chandica.' Let the sacrificer repeat the word Kali twice, then the words Devi - 13ajreswari, then Lawha Dandayai, Namah ! which words may be rendered —Hail, Kali ! Kt' di I hail, Devi I goddess of thunder I hail, iron-sceptred goddess ! " Let him then take the axe in his hand and again make the same by the Calratriya text.' Different mantra are used in reference to the description of the victim to be immolated : females are not to be immolated, except on very particular occasions ; tho human female never.