asserted, that he relinquished life in conformity to a custom prevailing among his countrymen; that, mentioned in a former chapter, of the unsuccessful but warlike sovereign of Lahore ; and the anthenticated narratives, in times comparatively modern, of the sacrifice or inhumation, together with the corpse of the monarch, of the principal slaves and most beloved women* of the sovereigns of the Peninsula; these collective considerations incontestably prove how much-accustomed the Indians formerly were to the rite of human sacrifices, and in how late periods they continued to practise that enormity, either constrained in regard to others. or voluntary in respect to themselves. dreadful rite, as a public national sacrifice, ceased, we are told,† when the ninth great incarnation of VEESHNU, in the form of the god ВOODH, above-mentioned, took place, about 1000 years before Christ, when that benign and compassionate deity abolished the dis

The

* Mention is made, in Harris's Voyages, (vol. i. p. 282,) of the death of a king at Tanjore, at whose funeral no less than three hundred of his concubines at once leaped into the flames. Texeira, in page 9 of his Persian History, declares, that, when he was in India, "four hundred women burned themselves at the funeral of the Naique of Madura."

† Asiat. Research. vol. i. p. 265.

VOL. II.

D

graceful

graceful custom, and ordained, in its place, the more simple and innocent oblation of fruits, flowers, and incense.

I am inclined to believe, that both this practice, and the barbarous custom of devoting to death the affectionate wife on the funeralpile of her deceased husband, (doctrines so opposite to the general precepts of Brahma, which cherished in the bosom of his votaries the most enlarged benevolence, and extended that benevolence even to brutes,) derived its origin, in part, from some early but forgotten connection with the neighbouring ferocious and war-trained tribes of SCYTHIA. I have ventured to differ from Major Rennel, in deriving the national appellation of Cathæi, which the Greeks, doubtless from some resembling sound heard by them, gave to the most warlike people of northern India, from Kathay, or, if written Cuthæi, from Scuthe, or Scythe; whereas, that gentleman, finding the name written Katheri in Diodorns Siculus, with perhaps greater propriety, would understand by them the Kattry, or Raja-pout, tribe, and quotes a passage from Thevenot in corroboration of the idea. However, his own conjecture, that the tribe of NOMURDY, inhabiting the banks of the Indus, may probably be the descendants

of

of the SCYTHIAN NOMADES, and a relation which I find in Abulgazi's History of the Tartars, concerning a very antient conquest of the northern regions of Hindostan by OGUS KHAN, one of their most early emperors, an account of which will be hereafter given in its proper place, induces me still, with every pro-,. per diffidence, to adhere to that opinion. But there antiently existed a race of people who bordered still nearer to the northern frontiers of India, and whose manners and habits, Herodotus acquaints us, greatly resembled + those of the Scythians, I mean the MASSAGE TÆ, inhabiting, according to Sir W. Jones, the territory by the moderns called BADAK SHAN, from whose primitive practices, however now altogether relinquished, the Indians might have borrowed their less humane principles and customs. I consider the GETES, upon whom Timur is said to have made war, as the direct descendants of this antient tribe, and am induced to do so by Sheriffedin's description of them, as a warlike race of moun

* See Abulgazi's Hist. of the Tart. vol. i. p. 17. + Herodotus, lib. i. p. 99, edit. Stephani, 1592, which is the edition quoted throughout this work.

Description of Asia, p. 21, prefixed to Nadir Shah.

taineers.* These GETES, Major Rennel † sup poses to be the same people with the modern JAUTS, who, at this day, make so conspicuous a figure in Hindostan. It is not from attachment to system, but from a wish to vindicate the mild and benevolent progeny of Hindostan from the inconsistency of a conduct so entirely repugnant to their genius, and to the general sentiments and practice at this day prevailing throughout the country, except among the war-tribe only, that I have so far pressed this argument, in the hope of inducing a persuasion that so nefarious a practice might possibly not have originated among them, but was a dreadful exotic, imported during their connection with their neighbours of the more barborous north. The sanguinary usage might have been universally adopted only in times prior to the institution of their first great legislator, whosoever, in reality, that legislator might have been. If, however, we allow, what, after all, I fear must be allowed, that it was prescribed by MENU himself; to avoid absurdity, we must suppose, that, to prevent too violent a shock being given to religious

:

Major Rennel's Memoir, p. 119, second edition.

prejudices

prejudices so deeply rooted, or not venturing to run the risk of abolishing at once a custom so generally practised, he permitted it only on some particular emergencies; but, in general, and probably with a view to remove for ever the baneful impression from their minds, throughout his whole voluminous code,* inculcated the most beneficent affection to their fellow-creatures; and, to prevent the effusion of bestial blood, which we know was so prodigally shed by the most antient nations, established the humane, but fanciful, and since corrupted, doctrine of the Metempsychosis.

The SCYTHIANS, however, were not their only neighbours who were, in a notorious degree, guilty of the enormity of human sacrifices. If Herodotus may be credited, (and, concerning these remote periods of the world, even Herodotus, the most respectable historian of antiquity, or rather the venerable father of all history, may be sometimes fallible,) the antient PERSIANS sacrificed human victims; and, in particular, he informs us, that,

The four VEDAS together compose eleven folio volumes, which are now in the possession of Colonel Polier, who was for many years resident at the court of DELHI.

↑ Herodoti, lib. vii. p. 477, edit. Steph.