54 K. M. Banerjea — Suman Sacrifices in Ancient India. [March, 



will confine myself to the proper subject of tlie paper as notified before- 

 hand, viz.^ "Hiunan Sacrifices in Ancient India." I do not know in what 

 Sense the learned essayist has used the term " Ancient India." I do not 

 deny that human sacrifices have prevailed in the country, but that was 

 long after the primitive Vedic period. My friend has referred to the 

 Rig Veda, but he has admitted that the verses to which he has called atten- 

 tion do not themselves conclusively prove the fact. But he seems to think 

 that those verses, coupled with the comment of the Aitareya Brahmana, do 

 prove his case. I beg to dissent from him. The case is that of S'unahsepha, 

 btit, like Isaac, he was let off. It was not in effect a case of human sacri- 

 fice. What it might have been in the intention is a question diflicult of 

 solution. The difiiculty is raised in the Aitareya Brahmana itself, which my 

 friend has adduced as his evidence. It speaks of Piorusha-medha. Now 

 " j)urusha" is not synonymous with onan. It only means a person. We 

 have in the Big Yeda the account of the sacrifice of ^^rimeval " purusha, 

 begotten in the beginning," (puruslmm jatamagratali). We have also the 

 Vedic dogma — " The Lord of the Creation offered himself as a sacrifice." 

 I believe this dogma and the description of the sacrifice of the Primeval 

 purusha proceeded from hazy recollections of the original revelation of " the 

 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." That is my belief but I 

 vdll not discuss it here. So much for the word "purusha." Now as to 

 the word onedha, my friend's own witness, the Aitareya Brahmana itself, 

 used it in the sense of that part or essence of an animal body, which alone 

 can be acceptably offered as a sacrifice, and it can he abstracted ivithout loss of 

 life to the animal. The Aitareya Brahmana refers not only to the case of 

 a Pt^ni/sha-medha, in which the person was dismissed alive, after the medlia 

 had escaped from his body, but also to nimierous cases of animals which 

 were prodiiced as victims, but released on the medha escaping from them, 

 " Medha" is a peciiliar sacrificial term. It seems to correspond to the 

 Hebrew me ha which, as an adjective, signifies y«i^, and is applied to sacrificial 

 animals, such as sheep and lambs. The substantive form moha means onar- 

 row. That is also the sense in which, according to the Inscriptions, the 

 word mahe was used by the Assyrians. But, as the Aitareya Brahmana 

 itself shows, the medlia can escape -without the animal being slaughtered. 

 What this means I cannot readily say. It is certain, however, that the use 

 of the term " purusha-medha" is little or no proof of the actual sacrifice of 

 a man, much less of the existence of an inhuman custom or institution 

 among our primitive ancestors. 



I do not deny that some time after the Vedic period such inhuman prac- 

 tices did prevail as offerings to Sakti in her blackest form. I acknowledge 

 also that solitary instances, rare in themselves, of a sort of religious suicide, 

 may likewise be found, apart from offermgs to Kali, in the post-Vedic period, 

 as in the case of Sarabhanga in the age of the Ramayana. 



