118 Kajendralala Mitra— On Human Sacrifices in Ancient India. [No. 1, 



It is not necessary for me to swell the bulk of this paper, already 

 more swollen than what I at first intended to make it, by collecting notes 

 of all the places where, and the occasions when, the rite of Narabali was 

 performed, in order to show how widespread was the practice during the 

 middle ages and modern times. Ward has given several instances of its 

 occurrence in Bengal in his elaborate dissertation on the Hindus. The fact 

 is well known that for a long time the rite was common all over Hindustan • 

 and persons are not wanting who suspect that there are still nooks and corners 

 in India where human victims are occasionally slaughtered for the gratifi- 

 cation of the Devi. In old families which belong to the sect of the Vama- 

 charis and whose ancestors formerly offered human victims at the Durga and 

 the Kali pujas, a practice still obtains of sacrificing an effigy, in lieu of a living 

 man. The effigy, a foot long, is made of dried milk (kMra), and sacrificed 

 according to the formula laid down in the Kalika Purana, the only addition 

 being a few mantras designed typically to vivify the image. A friend of 

 mine, Babu HemchunderKer, Deputy Magistrate of Twenty-four Pergunnahs 

 and author of an excellent work on the culture of Jute in Bengal, informs me 



On, 



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Kalika Purana. Chapter 56, 



