appeased by a less barbarous oblation. In that case, the half of his possessions was brought to the foot of the altar, and the treasures, thus extorted, were devoted to swell the immense revenues of the temple and to gratify the insatiable avarice of the priest.' It is affirmed, in the HEETOPADES,* that, without the Brahmins rites, a sacrifice is smitten;" that is, with a curse.

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Proportionate to the boon which he wished to obtam, or to the evil which he laboured to avert, was the largess the sacrificer bestowed. No less than sixteen various kinds of sacrifice, all of gold and precious stones, each rising above the other in value, are enumerated in the Aycen Akbery. Some of the ‡ articles thus enumerated are exceedingly curious, and among them are, "the amount of the sacrificer's own weight, against gold, silver, &c. golden horses, golden cows, trees, and vines of gold, ploughs of gold, chariots drawn by horses and clephants, all of gold." The value of these offerings varies from 10 to 6660 tolalis. The tolah, we are informed by Tavernier, a merchant in gold and

*

Heetopodes, p. 11.

Indian Travels, lib. i. c. 2.

Ayeen Akbery, vol. iii. p. 229.

jewels,

jewels, is a weight peculiarly appropriated, throughout the Mogul empire, to those precious commodities; and, according to that author, a hundred tolahs amount to thirtyeight ounces. These were probably, in time, substituted in the place of sanguinary oblations, and, from their vast amount, seem to carry evident proof that India was formerly much more abundant in wealth than in periods less recent. Indeed, the historians of Mahmud Gaznavi strongly countenance this idea, since they are quite extravagant in their account of the wealth found by him in that country. One of them, quoted by Mr Orme,* asserts that he found a tree growing out of the earth to an enormous size, of which the substance was pure gold, and this the effect of nature thus realising Milton's Fable of "ambrosial fruits and vegetable gold." Their offerings of a less splendid and ostentatious. kind are innumerable; consisting, for the most part, of rice, flowers, fruits, sweet-meats, cusagrass, cow's milk, and clarified butter. In the Sacontala Eendra is more than once denominated" the god with a hundred sacrifices.”

* Orme's Indostan, vol. i. p. 9, first edition.

+ Paradise Lost.

Sacontala, p. 83.

I

I have both heard and read so many attempts to confute and even to ridicule the assertion here made, that the altars of India were once STAINED WITH HUMAN BLOOD, that I could wish to place the disputed subject beyond the possibility of future controversy. No fact can be more certainly demonstrated, if we allow the two best Sanscreet scholars of Europe, Sir W. Jones and Mr Wilkins, to be adequate autho-rities for determining the question. The name of the black goddess, to whom these human sacrifices were offered, was NAREDA or CALLEE, who is exhibited, in the Indian temples sacred to her worship, with a collar, not composed, like that of the benign deities, of a splendid assemblage of the richest gems, but of GOLDEN SKULLS, descriptive of the dreadful rites in which she took so gloomy a delight. "To her," says Sir W. Jones, "human sacrifices were antiently offered as the VEDAS enjoined, but, in the present age, they are absolutely prohibited, as are also the sacrifices of bulls and horses." This observation is accompanied with an engraving of Narcda, in the Asiatic Researches,* sufficiently savage and picturesque. Both the text of the Heetopades, and Mr * Asiatic Research. vol. i. p. 265. + Heetopades, p. 212, and note 292.

Wilkins's

Wilkins's explanatory notes, decidedly corobo rate this assertion. "That most beautiful if not most antient collection of apologues in the world" records, under the veil of a fable, an instance of a father's sacrificing his son, to avert a dreadful calamity with which the kingdom of India was threatened by the intended flight of its guardian genius. The cruel goddess had informed him, that the offering up of that son, to the Power who presides over nature, should secure the prosperity of the reigning king and the salvation of the empire. The father relates to his son the dreadful tidings, who cheerfully consents to be sacrificed for the preservation of a great kingdom and its monarch. They approach the altar, and, when they have worshipped the image, "O goddess!" exclaims the sacrificer, "let SooBHRAKA, our sovereign, be prosperous! and let this victim be accepted!” saying this, he cut off his son's head. The goddess, to whom this offering was made, we are informed by Mr Wilkins, "was Callee, (a name derived from Cala, Time,) and it was to her that human sacrifices' were wont to be offered, to avert any threatened evil." In another fable,† a female observes: “ My husband,

* Heetopades, p. 212, and note 292. + Ibid. p. 185, note 249.

ᎥᏝ

if he chooses, can sell me to the gods or give me to the Brahmins," which the translator interprets, as referring to the "Naramedha, or human sacrifice, not uncommon in the earlier ages.' This angry deity is now propitiated by a sacrifice of kids and young buffaloes; so that at this day the vestige of blood remains.

It has been before remarked, that Mr Holwell strenuously denies the existence of these bloody rites in India: whereas, in fact, his whole relation, in regard to this sable personage, tends in the strongest manner to establish our belief of the general prevalence of this dreadfu! superstition throughout that country in very' remote æras. He tells us, that an antient pagoda, dedicated to this terrible divinity, stands about three miles south of Calcutta, close to a small brook, which the Brahmins believe to have been the original course of the Ganges; that, from her name of Callee, the place itself is called Callee Ghat; that her fast falls on the last day of the moon in September, and that she is worshipped all the night of that day universally, but more particularly at Callee Ghat above-mentioned; that different parts of this Gentoo goddess are adored in different places of Hindostan; her eyes at Callee Ghat, her head at Benares, her hand at Bindoobund, &c. that

she