m 



1876.] Rajendralala Mitra— On Human Sacrifices in Ancient India. 113 



over a certain number of men, it would not have been so obnoxious to 

 Hindu feeling as to necessitate its suppression. 



But while the Puranas suppressed the Purushamedha, they afford 

 abundant indications of another rite requiring the immolation of a human 

 victim having come into vogue. This was Narabali, or human sacrifice to 

 the goddess Chamunda, or Chandika,— a dark, fierce, sanguinary divinity, who 

 is represented in the most awful forms, not unoften dressed in human 

 Palms, garlanded with a string of human skulls, holding a skull by the hair 

 in one hand, and an uplifted sabre in the other, and having her person 

 stained with patches of human gore. European orientalists assign a very 

 modern date to the Puranas, and also to the Tantras which describe the 

 cultus of this divinity ; but poems and dramatic works dating from eight 

 to fifteen hundred years ago refer to her and her predilection for human 

 sacrifices, and lithic representations of her form of early mediaeval ages are 

 still extant. It has also been proved by unquestionable evidence that most 

 of the leading Tantras of the Hindus were translated into Tibetan from 

 the seventh to the ninth century of the Christian era, and thereby the 

 worship of that goddess naturalised on the other side of the Himalaya.* 

 It must follow that the Hindu Tantras existed for some time before the 

 7th century, and then the rite of Narabali was known and practised by the 

 people of this country. How long before that period the rite was known, 

 I shall not attempt to determine, for data for such a determination are not 

 available ; but the theory of interpolation apart, the goddess is mentioned in 

 the JSamayana as reigning in the nether regions ; and her type, as I have already 

 stated, is to be found in Artymis, and even among Assyrian records, and 

 she cannot, therefore, reasonably to taken to be so modern as is generally 

 supposed. 



The Kalika Purana is in ecstacy on the merits of the disgusting rite. 

 It says, " By a human sacrifice attended by the forms laid down, Devi 

 remains gratified for a thousand years, and by a sacrifice of three men one 

 hundred thousand years. By human flesh the goddess Kamakhya's con&ort 

 Bhairava, who assumes my shape, remains pleased for three thousand years. 

 Blood consecrated, immediately becomes ambrosia, and since the head and flesh 

 are gratifying, therefore should the head and flesh be offered at the wor- 

 ship of the goddess. The wise should also add the flesh free from hair, among 

 food offerings, "f The Purana then enters into minute details about the ways 



* Csoma de Korosi, in the Asiatic Researches, (XX, pp. 569 ff.) gives a long list of 

 Buddhist Tantras. 





