, 1876-12-23

excitement. But such instances have al
ways been rare, and are now unknown,
At one time several unhappy people were
killed or injured every year, but they
were almost invariably cases of accident
al trampng. The few suicides that did
occur were for the most part cases of dis.
cascd and miserable objects, who took
this means to pnt themselves out of pam,
The official returns now place this beyond
doubt. Indeed nothing could be more
opposed to the spirit OF Ni>hnu worship
than selfimmOIation. Accidental death
within the temple renders the whole
place uncIcan. The ritual suddenly stops
and the polluted offerings are hurried
away from the sight OF the offended god.
According to Chatunya, the Apostle OF
Jaganatb, the destruction of the least ol
Gods creatures was sin against the
Creator. Self-mmolation he would have
regarded with horror The copious re-
ligious literature of the sect frequently
describes the car festival, hut makes no
mention of self-sacrifices, nor does it con
tain any passage that could be twisted
into sanction for it, Abul FAIL, the
keen Mussulman observer, is equally 81
lent, although from the contest it is nl-
most certain that, had he heard of the
practice, he would have mentioned it,
So far from encouraging selt.immolatfon,
the gentle doctrines OF Jaganath tended
to check the once universal custom of
widow burning. Even before the gov
ernment put stop to it, our officials OBJ
served its comparative inirequency at
Puri.
The Commissioner of Orissa, writing
not long after the province passed under
English rule, says:
"Durin4 the four years that have wit
messed the ceremony, three cases of this
revolving spectacle of self.immolation
have occurred, one of which, may OBJ
serve, is doubtful and should probably
be ascribed to accident. In the other
two instances the victims had long been
su ffering from excruciating complaints,
and chose this method of Kidding them
selves of the burden of life in preference
to other modes of suicide"
The Commissioner is not happy in his
use of words "Self.immolation" by no
means accurately describes two suicides
and an accident. The official witness
observed the proceedings for four years
snccessively, over seventy years ago-at
the time when all the pious hearts of
Chrstendom were being moved for the
thousands crushed by Juggernaut. Dur
ing those four years the car was brought
out and rolled amid its crowds of wor.
shippers forty-eight times. But during
all that time the Official reports mention
one fatal accident and two suicides by
persons suffering excruciating diseases.
Why, if London cab only did that
much mischief in four years, it would de-
serve to be set up at Nine. Tussauds as
curiosity. Be it observed particularly,
that in no case has there been proved a
single case of sacrifcial sei-immolation
unde. the wheels of Juggernaut-during
the 700 years that the car has been roll
ing-nOt one.
When the Prince of Wales, having re-
covered from his memorable illness, went
to St. Paul's in state to national thanks
giving service, several persons were
crushed to death. If we were to learn
that owing to the misrepresentation of
some barbarian sailor or wanderer who
happened to lie in London at the time it
had become the settled belief OF some dis
tant island tribe that those persons had
been sacrificed or had inundated them
selves as votive offers to the English god
for the Princes recovery, we might be
amused Our amusemant then would en-
able us to appreciate that of Hindoos.
who come to London and find even pub
lie religious teachers believing rhat the
accidental deaths of suicides incidental
to the festival Of Krishna meant actual
human sacrifices to deity to whom
death is the one thing specially hateful
German sea captains have been instruct
ed by a recent imperial decree in relation
to their behavior in case OF accident at