Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

authenticated by the evidence of the Ayeen Akbery, and corroborated in some degree by the Asiatic Researches, that TIRHOOT, a city situated in the north of Bahar, possesses a prior claim to that honour; for, it is said, "from old time, to have been the residence of Hindoo learning;" and those delightful groves of orangetrees mentioned before, which extended no less than thirty cose, might well contribute to render it the Athens of Hindostan. It will be remembered, that Birmh-Gaya, a place of worship, so called from being consecrated to Brahma, is in that subah, and that Mr Chambers, quoting Ferishta, says, that the province of Bahar was thus denominated, "because it was formerly so full of Brahmins, as to be, as it were, one great seminary of learning," as the word imports. NAUGRACUT, situated on the range of mountains of the same name, to the north of Lahore, is also mentioned, by antient travellers, as having a celebrated college of Hindoo learning, groves of vast extent, and a most frequented and splendid chapel of Hindoo devotion, the very floor of which, according to Mandelsloe,+ was covered with plates of * Ayeen Akbery, vol. ii. p. 32.

+ Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 163.

Mandelsloe apud Harris, vol. ii. p. 120.

gold.

gold. The rites, however, were somewhat of a sanguinary kind: for, to gain the smile of MATTA, the monstrous idol adored there, the infatuated devotees cut out their tongues, which, according to Abul Fazil,* miraculously grew again in the space of two or three days.

4

It has, indeed, been asserted, and the assertion is supported by the evidence of tradition, that the very early inhabitants of India were neither so gentle in their manners nor so guiltless in their oblations as are the modern, but that they delighted in the effusion of sacrificial blood as much as their progeny abhor and avoid it. It has been asserted, that not only BESTIAL, but even HUMAN, sacrifices were common among them, and that the vestiges of this sanguinary superstition are still evident in frequent instances of voluntary suicide, and particularly in the inhuman practice, so common throughout India, of women burning themselves with their deceased husbands; a practice which is still encouraged by the Brahmins, and which all the authority of Mohammedan and European governors cannot effectually check. The truth of this assertion is, indeed, too well authenticated both by antient and modern writers; and, though

* Ayeen Akbery, vol. ii. p. 133.

Mr

[ocr errors]

Mr Hölwell,* arguing from the general mildness of the Hindoo character and the benevolent principles of the Brahmin religion, strenuously denics the existence of those bloody rites, yet, unaccountable as it may appear, the VEDAST themselves enjoin the oblation, on some occasions, of a MAN, a BULL, and a HORSE, under the names of NERAMEDHA, GOMEDHA, and ASWAMEDHA. In the Ayeen Akbery, it is expressly said, that, at a particular period, on account of the number of animals which were at that time sacrificed in Juggen, (divine worship,) "the Almighty appeared upon earth, under a human form, to convince mankind of the wickedness of that custom, and that he lived a hundred years." Strabo,§ indeed, and Arrian,]] unite in affirming, that sacrifices of animals were antiently practised in India, and specify both the bull and the horse, which were obliged to be coalblack, as being of a more rare and valuable kind. The former adds, that the throats of

* Holwell, part ii. p. 84.

Asiat. Research. vol. i. P. 265.

Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 241.

§ Strabo, lib. xv. p. 710.

Arrian in Indicis.

1

the

the victims were not cut, for fear of rendering the sacrifice imperfect by spilling the blood of the animal, but that they were strangled. This mode of depriving the animal of life, if we are at all to credit the account, was more probably adopted to avoid the defilement of that blood, but I can by no means find this particular confirmed, either in the Asiatic Researches, which expressly say, these ceremonies were; stained with blood, nor in that part of the Ayeen Akbery which records the history of the sacrificial rites of India. The latter book mentions, in opposition to what Strabo asserts concerning the coal-black steed, that the ASWAMEDḤA JUG, or horse-sacrifice, was only properly performed when the animal was white with a black right ear; which, however, being an object equally rare, will serve to prove the validity of that valuable author's general information.

However incredible to some persons may appear the assertion of the most sanguinary rites having been at one time generally practised in Hindostan, the existence of such rites is rendered exceedingly probable by the following short chapter in the Ayeen Akbery, which Abul Fazil, who had the best opportunities of investigating the fact, would not have inserted

unless

unless founded in truth. It is entitled,* MERITORIOUS Kinds of SUICIDE. There are five in number for the choice of the voluntary victim. "1. Starving. 2. Covering himself with cow-dung, setting it on fire, and consuming himself therein. 3. Burying himself with snow. (This practice must have been peculiar to the northern regions.). 4. At the extremity of Bengal, where the Ganges discharges itself into the sea through a thousand channels, he goes into the water, enumerates his sins, and prays till the alligators come and devour him. 5. Cutting his throat at Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna." The legislator, who could denominate these horrid acts of self-murder meritorious, could not be of a very mild or benevolent disposition, but, on the contrary, must have been a gloomy bigot or blood-thirsty tyrant. The sacrifice which CALANUS made of himself on the funeral pile before the whole assembled army of Alexander; the similar devotion of himself to the flames, at Athens, of the venerable Brachman ZARMANOCHAGAS, who attended the embassy sent by Porus to Augustus, and whose epitaph, dictated by himself, expressly

* Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 274.

asserted,

« PreviousContinue »