1876.] R. Mitra — On Human Sacrifices in Ancient India. 57 



same evidence, had before tlie discovery of the inscription assigned them to 

 the commencement of the Christian era. 



The present sculpture might be two or three centuries later, or its infe- 

 rior character might be partly due to its belonging to a minor class of 

 building, as the inferior material used seemed to indicate. Still Mr. Bayley 

 thoiight that it would not be safe to assign it to a later date than the 3rd 

 or 4th century of the Christian era, and if his interj)retation of it were 

 correct, it would suffice to prove the existence of human sacrifice among a 

 Hindu race at least as early as the epoch at which he presumed it to have 

 been executed. 



Babtj Rajendealala Mitea said, he was sorry that there should be 

 a mistmderstanding as to what he had meant by the word " ancient." He 

 Lad used the word in the sense in which historians generally employ it, 

 namely, to indicate all time anterior to the 6th century of the Christian era, 

 taking the period from the 6th to the 14th century to be the middle ages, 

 and all after the last date to be modern. He was perfectly well aware that 

 the practice of casting infants into the waters of the Hughli near Sagar 

 Island was most probably of mediaeval origin, and in referring to it, his 

 object was to point out, that what was common in the middle ages and 

 modern days, was not in se improbable in earlier times, and not to adduce 

 it as an instance of ancient usage ; though he strongly suspected that the 

 sacrifice of S'unahsepha was the type on which the modern rite was founded. 



He was not, he admitted, sufficiently well up in Biblical learning to 

 enter mto a discussion as to the true meaning of Abraham's offer of Isaac 

 as a sacrifice, nor was he disposed to raise a polemical controversy ; but to 

 his lay understanding, the offer, without any expression of compunction, 

 was a remarkable fact, and certain it was that when the offer was made, 

 there was no reservation, nor any prospect or hope of the offer not being 

 accejDted, and in so far, the case was a parallel one to that of S'unahsepha. 

 In the case of Jephtha, the rash vow to make a " burnt offering" was 

 brought to its tragic close by the immolation of his own daughter, " while 

 the Spirit of Jehovah," we are told, was upon him, and that clearly 

 showed that the Jews could, and did, sacrifice hmuan beings in the name 

 of religion. Doubtless there were many, passages in the Old Testament 

 which reprobated " the shedding of imioceut blood," as in Deuteronomy 

 xii, 31, and elsewhere, bvit they did not deter Jephtha. The legend of 

 Jej)htha is supposed by some to be an adaptation of that of Iphigenia, but it 

 does not alter the charge against the Jews. 



As regards the story of S'u.nahsepha, the Babu would, for the credit of 

 his ancestors, gladly accept the European theory on the subject, if he. could, 

 but he felt it impossible to reconcile the details of tlie story with its sup- 

 posed symbolical character. A man has a hundred wives, but no children ; 



