The origin of this atrocious worship is undoubtedly Hindu. The Thugs maintain that their occupation is represented in the caves of Ellora, as well as all other trades. Moreover, the terms they use are chiefly of Sanskrit origin ; and the'worship of Kali, as described in the KAlika Purfina, corresponds so well to the religious ceremonies of the Thugs, that there can be little doubt as to their identity. (' Asiatic Researches,' vol. v.) All the ceremonies of the Thugs are fixed by Parana, the date of which it is difficult to ascertain ; but frequent allusions are made to it in the Vint Charlie, a drama of Bhavabliati, who lived at the court of King Bhoja in the beginning of the al century of our era.
ThSvenot, in his Travels' (part iii., ch. 22), is the first to notice the Thugs : ho describes them as infesting the road from Agra to Delhi, and using a long rope furnished with a noose, which they throw with great dexterity round the traveller's neck ; and he relates that their Sothas were frequently women. About ten years after Th4venot, Dr. Fryer found them at Surat, where a gang of them were executed. lie describes them as T1udvenot does ; and it appears from the descrip tion that they belonged to the Mooltaneas, a peculiar class of Mohammedan Thugs.
Although the whole of the ceremonial is Hindi), the Thugs them selves, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, maintain that they descend from *even Mohammedan clans, Thugs, Bhp, Denote, 1(achunce, 'hitter, Canoe, and Thundee (' Ramsuieenna,' p. 11); the seven clans are admitted to be the most ancient and the original stock on which all the others have been engrafted. This circumstance may lead us to
suspect that Mohammedans were indeed the first to give a sort of political system to the Thugs ; and the seven clans of Ismailia, whose occupation was murder as dreadful as that of the Thugs, may, when persecuted in the last days of their political exigence, have joined themselves to the Hindu PhansIgars, and, adopting their ritual, have given rise to their present institution. This point ts investigated with much ingenuity in an article on the 'Secret Societies of Amit,' hi the 19th vol. of Blackwood'e Magazine.' Shah Jelutn and Anrengzobo instituted criminal proceedings against them. After this we again lose sight of them until the time of Ilyder Ali, who proceeded against them in a summary way. Mysore, however, seems to have been their favourite residence ; for in order to suppress them, in the reign of Tippoo Sultan, many of them were apprehended and sentenced to hard labour, and others suffered mutilation. It was in Mysore also that the English government first discovered them soon after 1799 ; but it waa not before 1810 that any measures were taken for their extermination ; and a plan for their suppression, which was successful, was adopted in 1830 by the then governor-general, Lord William Bentinck.
(Ramaseeana, or Vocabulary of the Peculiar Language used by the Thugs, Calcutta, 1836: this work is written by Col. Sleeman; The Confessions of a Thug, by Captain Meadows, 1840, London.)