Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1877-09-01
HUMAN SACRIFICE IN INDIA.
Thuggism, Car FESTIVALS, Suffice and samadh
Widows and Lepers-An AIlahRbad
Saint-UrdhvR-bahns.

A writer in the London AnthenGnn
says:
In what may be called the Brahmani-
cal period of Hindooism, human sacrifice
must have prevailed. 1t is even believed
by many, that the sects called Saktas
formerly ate portions of the flesh and
drank the blood of the victims sacrificed
at their secret orgies. The first idea of
sacrifice seems to have been that of sup
plying the deities with nourishment.
Gods and men all Toasted together. Then
succeeded the notion of the need of vica-
rious suffering, or life for life, blood for
blood. Some deities were believed to
thirst for human blood, and the blood of
animals was substituted for that of men.
Other forms of immolation were once
common in India. The Thugs maintain
ed that they sacrificed their victims to
the goddess Kali. Now that Thuggism
has been suppressed, a good deal of
datura poisoning is practised by the
same class of people. The killing of
female infants once prevailed extensively
in the Paniab and Raiputana, owing to
the difficulty of providing daughters with
suitable husbands, and the immense ex-
penses entailed by nuptial festivities.
Again, in former days self-immolation
was common. Many inundated them
selves at the great car festivals. volun-
tarily throwing themselves under the
enormous wheels not only of the car of
Jagannath at Puri in Orissa, but of the
other idol cars also. [ found similar
cars attached to every large pagoda in
the south of India. Some of them are so
large and heavy that they require to be
supported on sixteen wheels, and on
particular day, once year, they are drawn
through the streets by thousands of peo-
pie. Every now and then persons are
crushed under the wheels.
Self-immolation, in other ways, was
once extensively prevalent. There are
some sand hills in the Satpura range
dedicated to the god Siva-supposed to
delight in destruction-from q rock on
which many youths have precipitated
themselves, because their mothers, being
without children, have dedicated their
first-born sons to the god. With regard
to the immolation of the faithful wife
Commonly called Suttee-Sati) who fol-
lowed her husband in death, and burned
herself on his funeral pile, everywhere
i'll India L saw scattered about in various
places monuments erected over the
ashes of Salts, and everywhere such
monuments are still regarded with the
greatest generation by the people.
Happily we put stop to this practice
in 1929, though we had previourly sane
toned it under certain regulations, be-
heving that we ought not to interfere
with an ancient religious custom. In
one year, an official repor%of 800 widows
burnt, was received at Calcutta. Between
1916 and 1928, the average varied from
800 to 600 per annum.
Of course, leprosy in India, as in other
Eastern countries, is kind of living
death. Lepers are excluded from society,
and can get no employment; and they
often gave themselves up of their own
accord, to be buried alive, the motive
simply being desire to be released
from physical suffering. This was called
performing samadh (Sanskrit, soneadhi,
suspending the connection between soul
and body by religious abstraction).
A very respectable Hindoo gentleman
came to the river Narbada, attended by
a large retinue, to perform samadh, in
consequence of an incurable disease
under which he labored. After taking
leave of his family, he entered boat,
which conveyed him to the deepest part
of the river. He then loaded himself
with sand, and stepping into the water,
disappeared.
The population is increasing in a de-
gree which threatens to become wholly
manageable. Then widows never
marry again ; not even if their boy hus-
bands die, leaving them widows at the
age of six. A woman is supposed to be
sacramentally united to one husband.
and belongs to him forever. Every
town, every village, almost every house,
is full of widows who are debarred from
all amusements, and converted into
household drudges. Their life, like that
of the lepers, is a living death, and
they would often cheerfully give them.
selves up to be burned olive if the law
would let them. Only the other day in
Nepal, where our supremacy is still
barely recognized, the widows of Sin
Jung Bahadur became Salts, and burned
themselves with their husbands.
Then, again, the increase in the mum.
Der OF girls who cannot find suitable
husbands, is now causing much embar.
rassment in some districts; and even the
lepers, whose lives we preserve, involve
us in peculiar difficulties. These I'M
fortunate creatures often roam about the
country, exacting food from the people
by threatening to touch their children
Here and there we have built leper vii
lages-rows of cottages under trees de
voted to their use; and we make the
towns contribute from local funds to sup
port them, while charity ekcs out the
miserable pittance they receive.
Formerly, it was possible for devotee,
with the object of exciting admiration
or extorting aims, or under the delu
sion that their self-torture was an act O.
religious merit-to swing in the air at
tached to lofty pole by means of rope
and hook passed through the muscles O.
the back. Such self-inficted mutila
ton is now prohibited. Yet, even il
the present day, to acquire reputation
for sanctity, OF to receive homage and
offerings from the multitude, OF under
the idea of accommodating store of merit
all sorts of bodily sufferings, penances
and austerities, even to virtual suicide
are undergone-the latter being some
times actually perpetrated out of mer,
revenge, as its consequences are sup
posed to fall on the enemy whose actor
has driven the deceased to self-immola
ton.
I saw a man not long since at Alfalfa
bad who had sat in one position for fit,
years on stone pedestal exposed to sun
wind and rain. He never moves excep
once a day, when his attendants leac
him to the Ganges. He is an object o
wOrshin tn thousands and avon b;o,b