The Sacrifices of the Aryans

The careful study of the religious literature of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Hebrew or other religions of the Semitic races, or of the ideas of the early Greeks or of the beliefs and practices of the early Aryans, shows that all these people offered sacrifices of many kinds. The offerings—grain or oil or soma-juice or the flesh of animals or even the life of man—were not the same in all lands and on all occasions and the rites according to which the offering was given to the god differed in different countries, and were different in the same country at various times. But all sacrifice was performed because of one or other of two main ideas or because of a combination of the two ideas in the mind of the sacrificer.

The early worshipper wished to have a strong bond of union between himself and his god, and to secure that it seemed to him best that he and his god should feast together and especially that they should feast together on some animal sacred to the god and often considered to be of kin with the sacrificer. Or the worshipper was moved to offer sacrifices because he felt that his god required from him some gift, great or small, either to expiate divine wrath or to win divine favour.

The Vedic hymns show that although the Aryans drank soma-juice with their gods, and though priest and sacrificer shared the flesh of the victim, in the times when the hymns were collected a sacrificial offering was essentially a bribe to secure the favour of a given god; and the Aryans came later to believe that, if the proper victim were offered according to the appointed ceremonial, the gods could not refuse the petitions of the sacrificer.

The sacrifices of Vedic times may be divided into two classes. There are the household sacrifices and the greater sacrifices.

The household sacrifices were part of the earliest worship of the Aryans. The father of the family celebrated them and his wife assisted at them. They were simple and homely attempts to propitiate the heavenly powers. The sacred fire was kindled by the friction of two sticks in the central part of a new house when it was first inhabited and the fire was never allowed to go out. Each morning and evening the householder and his family assembled round the sacred flame. The master of the house as agnihotri priest of the fire, fed the fire with offerings of wood and clarified butter (ghrta, the modern ghi or ghee). While Agni the god, present in the fire, carried these simple offerings to the gods in the skies hymns were chanted and prayers ascended with the smoke.

At the times of the new and of the full moons special worship was offered, and the householder decorated his house and tied bunches of grass over the doorway, perhaps much in the same way as bunches of leaves of the neem (or margosa) or asoka trees are tied over doorways or across streets in strings (torana) in these days.

At the beginning of the spring, of the rainy season and of autumn there were special sacrifices. Twice a year when the fruit or grain ripened the ripe first-fruits were offered in a rustic festival to the gods. Once a year, when the rainy season set in, a he-goat was sacrificed in the house of the sacrificer.

Soma-juice was part of every offering of any importance, especially in invocations of Indra. Apparently it was simply poured out on to the bundles of the sacred kusa grass which were provided as seats for the invisible gods.

The greater sacrifices were offered in special emergencies or by kings or sages to gain extraordinary ends. They became as will be seen later, costly and elaborate beyond belief. The chief of the great sacrifices were: the soma sacrifice; the sacrifices of cows and oxen and other animals; the horse sacrifice; the human sacrifice.

The primitive family worship grew speedily more complex, and even before the hymns in the Rig-veda were collected the idea of sacrifice had so fully laid hold on the mind of the Aryans that all the thousand hymns in the Rig-veda refer directly or indirectly to sacrifice. The main reason for this was the belief mentioned above that if a hymn was rightly sung or chanted and if a sacrifice was duly performed, it was an infallible means of securing the object of the sacrificer, however audacious. It was thus of the utmost importance that the sacrifice if it were any but the most ordinary, should be performed by one who knew every detail of the ritual.

Hence the man with skill in the performance of sacrifice or in the wording of petitions came to be a person of importance. He was the spell-monger, the sooth-sayer (the mantra-kara), the master of charms, the Brahman or ‘prayer maker’ of the Aryans, perhaps the same as the flamen of the Latins. The social value of the priest, because he could pray or sacrifice more acceptably than others naturally led the priest himself to exaggerate and emphasize his own office and so a professional priesthood and a regular priestcraft came into existence.

With the rise of this priesthood the performance of the greater sacrifices became their special duty, and though a Kshatriya like King Janaka, the raj-rishi, might insist on the right to offer his own sacrifice, the priesthood gradually acquired the monopoly of celebrating all such sacrifices, and added ceremony to ceremony till it became impossible to observe the ritual and the whole system collapsed.

A hymn in the Atharva-veda (iii. 19) sets forth the power of the priest to secure the prosperity of those who are his friends and the destruction of his enemies, and is an indication of the growing pretensions of the priests as a class.

May this prayer of mine be successful; may the vigour and strength of mine be complete, may the power be perfect, undecaying, and victorious of those of which I am the purohita.
I fortify their kingdom, and augment their energy, valour and force. I break the arms of their enemies with this oblation.
May all those who fight against our wise and prosperous (prince) sink downwards and be prostrated.
With my prayer I destroy his enemies and raise up his friends.
May those of whom I am the purohita be sharper than an axe, sharper than fire, sharper than Indra’s thunderbolt.
I strengthen their weapons; I prosper their kingdom rich in heroes. May their power be undecaying and victorious. May all the gods foster their designs.
Atharva-veda, iii. 19.

Priests and their duties

Max Müller gives a long account of the principal orders of priests and their duties which may be summarized as follows:—

The Adhvaryus were the priests who were intrusted with the material performance of the sacrifice. They had to measure the ground, to build the altar, to prepare the sacrificial vessels, to fetch wood and water, to light the fire, to bring the victim and slay it. They formed, as it would seem, the lowest class of priests, and their acquirements were more of a practical than an intellectual character. Some of the duties of the Adhvaryus were considered so degrading, that other persons besides the priests were frequently employed in them. The Samitri, for instance, who had to slay the animal, was not a priest, he need not even be a Brahman, and the same remark applies to the Vaikartas, the butchers, and the so-called Chamasādhvaryus. The number of hymns and invocations which the Adhvaryus had to use at the sacrifices were smaller than that of the other priests. These, however, they had to learn by heart. But as the chief difficulty consisted in the exact recitation of hymns and in the close observance of all the euphonic rules, as taught in the Prātisākhyas, the Adhvaryus were allowed to mutter their hymns, so that no one at a distance could either hear or understand them. Only in cases where the Adhvaryu had to speak to other officiating priests, commanding them to perform certain duties, he was, of course, obliged to speak with a loud and distinct voice. All their verses and all the invocations which the Adhvaryus had to use, were collected in the ancient liturgy of the Adhvaryus together with the rules of the sacrifice. In this mixed form they exist in the Taittiriya Samhita or Black Yajur-veda. Afterwards the hymns were collected by themselves, separated from the ceremonial rules, and this collection is what we called the white Yajur-veda-samhita, or the Prayer Book of the Adhvaryus priests.

Some parts of the sacrifice, according to ancient custom, had to be accompanied by songs, hence another class of priests arose whose particular office it was to act as the chorus. They took part in the most solemn sacrifices only. Though as yet we have no key as to the character of the music which the Udgatris performed, we can see from the numerous and elaborate rules, however unintelligible, that their music was more than mere chanting. The words of their songs were collected in the order of the sacrifice, and this is what we possess under the name of Sama-veda-samhita, or the Prayer-Book of the Udgatri priests.

A third class of priests, the Hotris, recited certain hymns during the sacrifice in praise of the gods to whom any particular act of the sacrifice was addressed. Their recitation was loud and distinct, and required the most accurate knowledge of the rules of euphony or Siksha. The Hotris, as a class, were the most highly educated order of priests. They were supposed to know both the proper pronunciation and the meaning of their hymns, the order and employment of which was taught in the Brāhmanas of the Bahvrichas. But, while both the Adhvaryus and Udgatris were confessedly unable to perform their duties without the help of their Prayer Books, the Hotris were supposed to be so well versed in the ancient sacred poetry, as contained in the ten Mandalas of the Rig-veda, that no separate Prayer Book or Samhita was ever arranged for their special benefit.

The Hotri learnt, from the Brāhmana, or in later times, from the Sutra, what special duties he had to perform. He knew from these sources the beginnings or the names of the hymns which he had to recite at every part of the service.

The most ancient name for a priest by profession was Purohita, which only means one placed before. The original occupation of the Purohita may simply have been to perform the usual sacrifices; but, with the ambitious policy of the Brahmans, it soon became a stepping-stone to political power. Thus we read in the Aitariya-Brāhmana:

Breath does not leave him before time; he lives to an old age; he goes to his full time, and does not die again, who has a Brahman as guardian of his land, as Purohita. He conquers power by power; obtains strength by strength; the people obey him, peaceful and of one mind.[^4]

Briefly put the three definite orders among the Brahmans, their Vedas and their names are:

hotri means ‘sacrificer’ from hu = pour on the fire. The hotri recites richas, ‘praises’: hence comes the Rig-veda.
udgatri means ‘singer’ from udgai = sing. The udagatri raises sāmani ‘chants’: hence comes the Sāma-veda.
adhvaryu means ‘working priest’ from adhvara = a ritual act. The adhvaryu mutters yajunsi, ‘sacrificial formulae’: hence comes the Yajur-veda.

The sacrificial instruments

It is not worth while to attempt to draw up a list of all the implements and utensils that were used in sacrifices, after sacrifice had been developed in the times of the Brāhmanas. Many instruments—pots, three kinds of ladles for pouring clarified butter on the fire, a smaller ladle or spoon for conveying the butter from the pot to larger ladles, caldrons, beakers, the sacred kusa grass, on which the gods might sit and on which soma-juice was poured out—are all mentioned in the Atharva-veda (xviii. 4). The yupa was the post to which the animal victim was tied. There were, of course, knives and choppers for cutting up the victim. The sphya was a wooden instrument shaped something like a sword for stirring the boiling rice, or perhaps for trimming the mound used as an altar. One of the priests had to hold it up high so long as the chief ceremonies lasted to keep off evil spirits.[^5] There was also the press-stone for crushing the soma-plant. All of these were multiplied or modified as the ritual of the great sacrifices was developed.

The soma sacrifice

The first of these great sacrifices, originally a very simple act, was the soma sacrifice. Though a book of the Rig-veda and the whole of the Sāma-veda were eventually devoted to the chants to be raised during the performance of the soma sacrifices, no clear idea of the ceremonies can be gained from those books. It is from the Brāhmanas of the Sāma-veda that the needful information has to be obtained, and when it has been obtained it is not of very clear significance. In fact there is little of interest in these soma sacrifices. They were celebrated in a variety of ways. It may be imagined that originally the juice of the plant was merely crushed from its stems and collected, and then part was poured out for the gods and part was drunk by the worshippers. But this simplicity soon departed.

One soma sacrifice, the Agnishtoma, celebrated in spring-time was in praise of Agni; it required the ministrations of sixteen priests. It occupied only one day, during which the soma-juice was pressed from the plant, the essential part of the ceremony, three times; but there were detailed preparatory rites, including the initiation (diksha) of the man who made the sacrifice and his wife.

There is one classification of the soma sacrifices according to the length of time which they lasted which shows that they extended to as many as twelve days in one case. This last sacrifice could only be performed by Brahmans, which is an indication that it belongs to the later Vedic times; a large number of Brahmans must join to perform it, and they might lengthen out the rites to a hundred days, or to some years. The objects for which the sacrifice was offered were offspring, cattle, wealth, fame, theological learning, skill to perform ceremonies, and heaven. For gaining heaven a soma-sacrifice was indispensable, for the sacred soma-juice was thought to unite the sacrificer with the celestial king Soma and so to make the worshipper an associate of the gods and an inhabitant of the celestial world.[^6]

Animal sacrifices

Animal sacrifices were always of a more or less special character among the Aryans. According to the Atharva-veda (xii. 2. 48) a draft-ox was burned with the corpse of a dead man presumably for the dead to ride in the next world. The goat and the horse were sacrificed together at the horse-sacrifice.[^7] At one sacrifice, probably a very unusual sacrifice, performed once in five years, called the Pancha saradiya sava, seventeen young cows were offered. Bullocks, buffaloes and deer were also sacrificed, sometimes in large numbers. The White Yajur-veda mentions 327 domestic animals, including oxen, cows, milch-cows that were to be offered along with the horse at the great horse sacrifice, and the Taittiriya Brāhmana mentions 180 domestic animals, such as cows, bulls, goats that are to be sacrificed.[^8] But though it is quite clear that animals were offered it is not easy to see how, even great kings could command such holocausts. In Vedic times they were impossible in the form in which they are described in the White Yajur-veda and in the Brāhmanas. Unfortunately it is from these later sacrificial manuals that accounts of these sacrifices have to be obtained.

Reference has been made in the first section of this book to Dr. Rajendralala Mitra’s careful papers on the whole subject of meat-eating, animal sacrifices and human sacrifices collected and published in 1881 in two volumes under the title The Indo-Aryans.[^9] His investigations and those of other scholars on the subject seem to establish the following facts.

The Āsvalayana Sutra mentions several sacrifices of which the slaughter of cattle formed a part. One of them, in the Grihya Sutra, is worthy of special notice. As it is called Sulagava, or ‘spitted cow.’ In the Brāhmanas there are many rules laid down for many kinds of Cow-sacrifices. Going back to the ancient Taittiriya Brāhmana, of the Black Yajur-veda, ’that grand store-house of Vedic rituals which affords the fullest insight into the religious life of ancient India,’ as Dr. Rajendralala Mitra calls it, many ceremonies are named, which required the meat of cattle for their performance; and considerable stress is laid on the kind and character of the cattle which should be slaughtered for the supply of meat for the gratification of particular divinities.[^10] The following summary presents the main facts:

Thus, among the Kamya Istis, or minor sacrifices with special prayers, we have to sacrifice a dwarf ox to Vishnu; a drooping-horned bull with a blaze on the forehead to Indra as the author of sacrifices or as the destroyer of Vritra; a thick-legged cow (Prisnisaktha) to the same as the regent of wind; a white-blazed drooping-horned bull to the same, as the destroyer of enemies, or as the wielder of the thunderbolt; a barren cow to Vishnu and Varuna; a bull that has been already sanctified at a marriage or other ceremony to Indra and Agni; a polled ox to Brahmanaspati; a black cow to Pushan; the cow that has brought forth only once to Vayu; a brown ox to Indra, the invigorator of our faculties; a speckled or piebald ox to Savita; a cow having two colours to Mitra and Varuna; a red cow to Rudra; a white barren cow to Surya; a white ox to Mitra; a cow fit to conceive to Bhaga, etc. In a rule in connexion with the Asvamedha, the same authority lays down that sacrificial animals should differ in caste, colour, age, etc., according to the gods for whom they are designed.[^11]

In the larger ceremonies, such as the Rajasuya, the Vajapeya, and the Asvamedha, the slaughter of cattle was an invariable accompaniment. Of the first two the Go-sava formed an integral part, and it ensured to the performer independent dominion in this world, and perfect freedom in the next to saunter about as he liked, even as the cow roams untrammelled in the forest.[^12] In its account of the Asvamedha, the Taittiriya Brahmana recommends 180 domestic animals to be sacrificed, including horses, bulls, cows, goats, deer, nilgaos.[^13] A number of wild animals were, likewise, on such occasions, brought to the sacrificial posts, but they were invariably let loose after consecration. The authority, however, does not distinctly say how many heads of cattle were required for the purpose; the number, perhaps, varied according to the exigencies of the guests, among whom crowned heads with their unwieldy retinues formed so prominent a part, and whose requirements were regulated by a royal standard. But even the strictly ceremonial offering was not, evidently, completed with a solitary cow or two. Of the ’ten times eighteen’ heads required, a great many must have been bulls, cows and heifers of diverse colours and ages. The Brahmana notices another ceremony in which a large number of cattle were immolated for the gratification of the Maruts and the enjoyment of their worshippers. This was called the Pancha saradiya sava, or the ‘quinquennium of autumnal sacrifices.’ It evidently held the same position in ancient India which Durga Puja does in the calendar of modern Hindus. It used to be celebrated, as its name implies, for five years successively, the period of the ceremony being limited to five days on each occasion, beginning with the new moon which would be in conjunction with the Visakha constellation. This happened in September or October. The most important elements of the ceremony were seventeen five-year old, humpless, dwarf bulls, and as many dwarf heifers under three years. The former were duly consecrated, and then liberated, and the latter, after proper invocations and ceremonial observances, immolated; three on each day, the remaining two being added to the sacrifice on the last day, to celebrate the conclusion of the ceremony for the year. The Tandya Brahmana of the Samaveda notices this ceremony, but it recommends cattle of a different colour for each successive year. According to it the seventh or eighth of the waxing moon in Asvini for the first year, and the 6th of Krittika for the following years were the more appropriate for it. The origin of the sacrifice, according to a Vedic legend, is due to Prajapati. Once on a time he wished to be rich in wealth and dependents; ‘he perceived the Pancha saradiya; he seized it, and performed a sacrifice with it, and thereby became great in wealth and dependents.’ ‘Whoever wishes to be great,’ adds the Veda, ’let him worship through the Pancha saradiya. Thereby, verily, he will be great.’[^14]

Elsewhere it is said that ’this ceremony ensures thoroughly independent dominion, and that a sage of the name of Kandama attained it through this means.’

‘That the animal slaughtered was intended for food,’ says Dr. R. Mitra, ‘is evident from the directions given in the Asvalyana Sutra to eat of the remains of the offering; but to remove all doubt on the subject I shall quote here a passage from the Taittiriya Brahmana in which the mode of cutting up the victim after immolation is described in detail; it is scarcely to be supposed that the animal would be so divided if there was no necessity for distribution.’ A few extracts from this passage will be sufficient here:

Separate its hide so that it may remain entire. Cut open its breast so as to make it appear like an eagle (with spread wings). Separate the forearms; divide the arms into spokes; separate successively in order the twenty-six ribs. Dig a trench for burying the excrements. Throw away the blood to the rakshasas. O slayer of cattle, O Adhrigu, accomplish your task; accomplish it according to rules.

The Gopatha Brahmana of the Atharva-veda gives in detail the names of the different individuals who are to receive shares of the meat for the parts they take in the ceremony. The following are a few of them: The Prastata is to receive the two jaws along with the tongue; the Pratiharta, the neck and the hump; the Udgata, the eagle-like wings; the Nesta, the right arm; the Sadasya, the left arm; the householder who ordains the sacrifice the two right feet; his wife, the two left feet, etc.

Diverse imprecations are hurled against those who venture to depart from this order of distribution. The shares differed but all were allowed plentiful libations of soma juice.

It is impossible to think that such an elaborate ritual was ever observed in more ancient Vedic times. But, on the other hand, it is obvious that sacrifices of cows must have been offered in those more ancient days for they would not have been carried on in a later age without the sanction of earlier usage and it may fairly be concluded that these animal sacrifices were simple sacrificial feasts in which the god and his worshipper shared together the flesh of the sacred animal were part of the original worship of the earliest Aryans.

The Horse Sacrifice

The Asvamedha or horse-sacrifice was one of the most imposing of the great sacrifices (mahakratu). Two hymns in the Rig-veda show that it was performed from the very earliest times (Rig-veda, i. 162 and 163). It is fully described in the White Yajur-veda and in the Satapatha and Taittiriya Brahmanas, and was regarded as the most important and efficacious of animal sacrifices. It was a sacrifice that in later times could only be offered by a king of undisputed authority, for the sacrificial horse was allowed to wander for a whole year at will, followed by the army of the king performing the rite. If any chief dared to interfere with the horse his territory was seized; if he did not, he acknowledged himself to be a feudatory of the king who had sent out the horse. In either case the horse showed the way to conquest and if it survived the year it was clear proof of its owner’s undisputed power. In earlier times it may have been a sacrifice offered before a chief set out on an invading expedition into the territory of rival chieftains, but in the Rig-veda the object of the Asvamedha is like other religious rites, the acquiring of wealth and posterity:

May this good steed bring us all-sustaining riches, wealth in good kine, good horses, manly offspring. Freedom from sin may Aditi vouchsafe us: the steed with our oblations gain us lordship.
Rig-veda, i. 162. 22.

It was in the later ritual that it was generally intended to secure victory and prosperity to the king who performed it, and many kings are said to have celebrated it for this purpose.

Yudhistira sacrificed a horse after the great war with the Kurus, to expiate all the sin of the war, and the Asvamedha Parva of the Mahabharata describes it. It was also performed to secure an heir to a king, and the Balakanda of the Ramayana tells how Dasaratha the father of Rama celebrated it before the birth of Rama. Practically our knowledge of the ritual is derived from these later accounts. According to them the sacrifice began in the spring or summer. Then the animal after selection roamed with its body-guard of a hundred princes, a hundred nobles and a hundred servitors, while thanksgiving and the recital of the Vedas occupied those who remained in the king’s city. When the year had expired the sacrifice was completed. It took three days, during which soma juice was pressed, the horse was bathed, and other animal sacrifices were performed. On the third day the horse was bound to the sacrificial post covered with a cloth and killed or suffocated. If the king wanted an heir the chief queen had to remain under the cover with the dead horse all night.

Thus in the Ramayana the horse-sacrifice is employed by the childless Dasaratha as the means of obtaining sons. In the Balakanda it is said that his principal queen, Kausalya, ‘with three strokes slew that horse, experiencing great glee. And with the view of reaping merit, Kausalya, with an undisturbed heart, passed one night with that horse.’ According to the Ramayana, she acquired so much merit in this way that she bore Rama. There is no trace of this obscenity in the Rig-veda, and it may be cited as a conspicuous instance of the degradation of worship that was possible in the time of the Brahmanas.[^15]

When the queen had left the horse it was cut up and roasted. On the third day the king who had celebrated the sacrifice bathed, and gave gifts to the officiants. That the horse was killed and its flesh cooked is evident from the following extract from the Rig-veda:

What from thy body which with fire is roasted, when thou art set upon the spit, distilleth,— Let not that lie on earth or grass neglected, but to the longing gods let all be offered. They who, observing that the horse is ready, call out and say, ‘The smell is good’ remove it, And, craving meat, await the distribution,—may their approving help promote our labour. The trial-fork of the flesh-cooking caldron, the vessels out of which the broth is sprinkled, The warming-pots, the covers of the dishes, hooks, carving-boards, all these attend the charger. The four-and-thirty ribs of the swift charger, kin to the gods, the slayer’s hatchet pierces. Cut ye with skill, so that the parts be flawless, and piece by piece declaring them dissect them.
Rig-veda, i. 162. 11-13, 18.

This hymn would be nonsense if the horse was not really killed and cooked. That the horse was to be actually immolated and that the body was cut up into fragments is clear; that these fragments were dressed, partly boiled, and partly roasted, is also undisputable; and although the expressions may be differently understood, yet there is little reason to doubt that part of the flesh was eaten by the assistants, part presented as a burnt offering to the gods.[^16]

The horse, however, was comforted in the same hymn by the thought that it was going to the gods:

Let not thy dear soul burn thee as thou comest, let not the hatchet linger in thy body. Let not a greedy clumsy immolator, missing the joints, mangle thy limbs unduly. No, here thou diest not, thou art not injured; by easy paths unto the gods thou goest. The bays, the splendid deer are now thy fellows; and to the ass’s pole is yoked the charger.
Rig-veda, i. 62. 20, 21.

Human Sacrifice

The belief in the efficacy of human sacrifice is very ancient and widespread. Arabs, Canaanites, Moabites, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Britons and scores of other races and tribes have all practised it in various forms. In all cases there was the idea that such a terrible offering must be peculiarly efficacious. Such sacrifices in India have always been associated with the indigenous deities worshipped by the Dravidian tribes. It was to such gods that human lives were offered when a newly excavated tank failed to produce sufficient water, or when a temple wall cracked, or the foundation of a bridge gave way. The fierce and cruel goddesses of later Hinduism, Chamunda, Chandi, Durga, Kali, Mari and their sisters were really exalted Dravidian goddesses, and are declared to be appeased by human lives. In modern times the offering to these goddesses is usually the blood of sheep, goats or fowls, but occasionally a devoted worshipper will offer a few drops of blood.

‘The offering of one’s own blood’ says Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, ’to the goddess is a mediaeval and modern rite. It is made by women, and there is scarcely a respectable house in all Bengal, the mistress of which has not, at one time or other, shed her blood under the notion of satisfying the goddess by the operation. Whenever her husband or a son is dangerously ill, a vow is made that, on the recovery of the patient, the goddess would be regaled with human blood, and in the first Durga Puja following, or at the temple at Kalighat, or at some other sacred fane, the lady performs certain ceremonies, and then bares her breast in the presence of the goddess, and with a nail-cutter (naruna) draws a few drops of blood from between her busts, and offers them to the divinity.’

In the same way women pierce their cheeks with silver skewers in honour of the definitely Dravidian goddess Kurumayi at Woriur near Trichinopoly. Such offerings are vestiges of the times when human lives were once offered to these Dravidian goddesses.

These were called narabali, the sacrifice of men. The Vedic human sacrifice has the more honourable title Purusamedha ’the sacrifice of humanity’, or ‘of the hero’; but the two cannot easily be distinguished.

Of human sacrifices (narabali) the Kâlika Purâna composed in honour of Kâli or Durgâ Devi 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.’ The human sacrifice is described as atibali, the highest of all sacrifices.

In India to this day the belief exists and strange stories of such sacrifices find ready acceptance. A case now and then comes into court which shows that from time to time human beings actually are slain in sacrifice. In 1900 in the Bombay Presidency the High Court upheld the conviction of three men for the murder of a child named Dagdi as a sacrifice to persuade a deity to reveal to the murderers the place where treasure was hidden. In Bellary in 1901 a Kuruba, a man belonging to one of the most ancient Dravidian tribes in South India was convicted of the murder of his own son in order to obtain treasure that the god Kona Irappa had promised to him on that condition. In the Bombay Presidency a charge of the murder of a girl-child to propitiate the malice of certain water-deities called ‘mavlis’ was proved and upheld on appeal against a Hindu woman named Bhagu, wife of Laxman, in November, 1910 and against Umi, wife of Jayaji in March, 1911. In 1912 the quiet town of Bezwada in the Madras Presidency was thrown into commotion because the Governor of Madras was believed to have performed a human sacrifice at the foot of a hill in the neighbourhood in order to gain possession of hidden treasure. The origin of the rumour was that on his visit to Bezwada the Governor attended a meeting of Freemasons, held of course with closed doors.

The extreme merit of such a sacrifice is evident in many a vernacular legend. One such was given by Mr. H. R. Scott, M.A., in a paper on The Gujerati Poets[^17] in which he relates a legend which appears in a poem by a Gujerati poet named Akho.

Akho was no Brahman or Vaniyo, but a working goldsmith. He began by being an enthusiastic Vaishnava of the Vallabhâchârya sect, but he was disillusioned, and in bitterness of soul he compared his Guru—the head of the sect—to an old bullock yoked in a cart he could not draw, a useless expense to his owner; nay, he compares him to a stone in the embrace of a drowning man, which sinks where it is expected to save. He defies current views about defilement, and says it is not external bathing but internal purity that is needed.

This story as recited by Akho is about Sagâlshâ Sheth, a very devout man who had an equally devout wife, Sandhyâvati, and the pair had one loving and much beloved son Selaiya. It was their practice never to eat a meal unless they could share it with some poor Sâdhu or saint. Once in the rainy season, there came a tremendous downpour, and it lasted for eight days and nights, during which it was not possible for any Sâdhu to be found, and the pair fasted during this whole time. When the rain ceased, Sagâlshâ sent out a messenger to hunt up a Sâdhu, and he found one in a temple on the out-skirts of the town; but the Sâdhu was a loathsome, evil-smelling leper, covered with open sores. This did not deter Sagâlshâ, who ran to the place and implored the Sâdhu to come and be his guest. The Sâdhu, who was the god himself come in this guise to put his servant to the test, raised various objections, but Sagâlshâ saw through the disguise and recognized his lord, and met them all. The leper would not walk, nor would he sit in the carriage which Sagâlshâ Sheth offered to bring for him; he insisted on being placed in the holy cage in which the idol of the temple was kept, and on being carried by the Sheth’s wife. This was done with much gladness, the devout pair regarding themselves as highly honoured, though the leper’s sores soiled the woman’s clothing, and the townsfolk turned out to laugh at the devout pair. But when the Sâdhu had been brought to the house their troubles were not ended. He demanded meat, and the pair were rigid vegetarians! Yet in that too they submitted, and were about to send to the butcher’s when the leper said he needed human flesh, and to provide that there was only one way. But as the poet says: ‘It is when faced by some real difficulty that the true man reveals his character.’ So Sagâlshâ went off to fetch his boy from school. He explained the matter as they walked along, and Selaiya, ’the bright-witted boy’ as he is called, agreed to be sacrificed. One must die sometime, he says, and a death under these circumstances, and at the hand of a saint, is something to covet.

Besides, look at what others have done, and he goes over a list of those who had gladly died or suffered for the sake of piety, such as Karna, Harischandra. So the boy is sacrificed, willingly submitting himself to the knife. His mother is ordered by the inhuman Sâdhu to put on her jewels, and dress in her brightest clothes, and show no sign of grief, or of reluctance to let her son be sacrificed. And so the story goes on, till the climax is reached, and the god reveals himself, and praises the devotion of his servants and restores their son to life. Then he asks Sagâlshâ to choose a boon—‘Ask what you will and I shall give it unto thee.’ And the answer of the pious man is quite the finest thing in the poem. He asks nothing for himself, but says—‘I only ask, my Master, that you may never again put any one to such a test.’

There can be no doubt, then, that in the Hinduism that has been influenced by Dravidian beliefs, and that as far back as Puranic times, the practice of human sacrifice was observed, though probably only on rare occasions.

The practice can further be traced back through the Brâhmanas to Vedic times, when human sacrifices were offered to Vedic deities to secure religious merit. The whole subject of human sacrifice in Vedic times has been carefully investigated by Dr. Rajendralala Mitra in a paper originally published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Some Indian scholars had maintained that human sacrifices were not authorized in the Vedas, but were introduced in later times, but Dr. Rajendralala Mitra says: ‘As a Hindu writing on the actions of my forefathers—remote as they are—it would have been a source of great satisfaction to me if I could adopt this conclusion as true; but I regret I cannot do so consistently with my allegiance to the cause of history.’

His paper on the subject occupies eighty-four pages in his Indo-Aryans, with many quotations both in Sanskrit and English. The following is a brief summary. First there is a description of the prevalence of human sacrifices in all parts of the world, both in ancient and modern times, and Dr. Mitra finds that benign and humane as was the spirit of the ancient Hindu religion, it was not opposed to animal sacrifice; on the contrary, most of the principal rites required the immolation of large numbers of various kinds of beasts and birds. One of the rites enjoined required the performer to walk deliberately into the depth of the ocean to drown himself to death. This was called Mahaprasthâna, and is forbidden in the present age. Another, an expiatory one, required the sinner to burn himself to death, on a blazing pyre. This has not yet been forbidden except by British law. The gentlest of beings, the simple-minded women of Bengal, for a long time used to throw their first-born babes to the sacred river Ganges at Sagar Island, and this was preceded by a religious ceremony, though it was not authorized by any of the ancient rituals. If the spirit of the Hindu religion has tolerated, countenanced or promoted such acts, it is not unreasonable or inconsistent, to suppose that it should have, in primitive times, recognized the slaughter of human beings as calculated to appease, gratify, and secure the grace of the gods.

The clear evidence recorded in the Vedas is next examined. The earliest reference to human sacrifice occurs in the first book of the Rig-veda. It contains seven hymns supposed to have been recited by one Sunahsepa when he was bound to a stake preparatory to being immolated. The story is given in the Aitareya Brâhmana of the Rig-veda.

The story of Sunahsepa

King Harischandra had made a vow to sacrifice his first-born to Varuna, if that deity would bless him with children. A child was born, named Rohita, and Varuna claimed it; but the father evaded fulfilling his promise under various pretexts until Rohita, grown up to man’s estate, ran away from home into the forest and wandered there for six years, while Varuna afflicted the father with dropsy. At last Rohita met a starving Brahman named Ajigarta who consented to sell to him his son Sunahsepa for a hundred cows, to be offered as a substitute for himself. Varuna accepted the substitute saying ‘a Brahman is worth more than a Kshatriya.’ When Sunahsepa had been prepared, they found nobody to bind him to the sacrificial post. Then Ajigarta said, ‘Give me another hundred cows, and I will bind him.’ They gave him another hundred cows, and he bound him. When Sunahsepa had been prepared and bound, when hymns had been sung, and he had been led round the fire, they found nobody to kill him. Next Ajigarta said, ‘Give me another hundred cows and I will kill him.’ They gave him another hundred cows, and he came whetting the knife to slay his son. Then Sunahsepa is said to have recited hymns praising Agni, Indra, Mitra, Varuna, and other gods. One may be quoted.[^18] Its concluding verses deserve special attention.

Whatever law of thine, O god, O Varuna, as we are men, Day after day we violate.
Give us not as a prey to death, to be destroyed by thee in wrath, To thy fierce anger when displeased.
To gain thy mercy, Varuna, with hymns we bind thy heart, as binds The charioteer his tethered horse.
They flee from me dispirited, bent only on obtaining wealth, As to their nests the birds of air.
When shall we bring, to be appeased, the hero, lord of warrior might, Him, the far-seeing Varuna?
This, this with joy, they both accept in common: never do they fail The ever-faithful worshipper.
He knows the path of birds that fly through heaven, and, sovran of the sea, He knows the ships that are thereon.
True to his holy law, he knows the twelve moons with their progeny[^19]: He knows the moon of later birth.
He knows the pathway of the wind, the spreading, high, and mighty wind: He knows the gods who dwell above.
Varuna, true to holy law, sits down among his people; he, Most wise, sits there to govern all.
From thence perceiving he beholds all wondrous things, both what hath been, And what hereafter will be done.
May that Aditya, very wise, make fair paths for us all our days: May he prolong our lives for us.
Varuna, wearing golden mail, hath clad him in a shining robe: His spies are seated round about.
The god whom enemies threaten not, nor those who tyrannize o’er men, Nor those whose minds are bent on wrong.
He who gives glory to mankind, not glory that is incomplete, To our own bodies giving it.
Yearning for the wide-seeing one, my thoughts move onward unto him. As kine unto their pastures move.
Once more together let us speak, because my meath[^20] is brought: priest-like, Thou eatest what is dear to thee.
Now saw I him whom all may see, I saw his car above the earth: He hath accepted these my songs.
Varuna, hear this call of mine: be gracious unto us this day: Longing for help I cried to thee.
Thou, O wise god, art lord of all, thou art the king of earth and heaven: Hear, as thou goest on thy way.
Release us from the upper bond, untie the bond between and loose, The bonds below, that I may live.

Varuna, pleased with the hymns of Sunaḥśepa, set him free and the youth, disgusted with his father, forsook him, and became the adopted son of Viśvamitra, his maternal uncle. Like Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, Prof. Max Müller believed that the story in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa showed that, ‘at that early time, the Brahmans were familiar with the idea of human sacrifices, and that men were purchased for that purpose.’

According to the Brahmanic ritual the Puruṣamedha, as a regular part of Vedic worship, was celebrated for the attainment of supremacy over all created beings. Its performance was limited to Brahmans and Kshatriyas. It could be commenced only on the tenth of the waxing moon in the month of Chaitra (March-April), and altogether required forty days for its performance, though only five out of the forty days were specially called the days of the Puruṣamedha. Eleven sacrificial posts were required for it, and to each of them was tied an animal fit for Agni and Soma, the human victims being placed between the posts.

The full description of this rite occurs in the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā of the White Yajurveda. The passage in it bearing on the subject is supposed to describe the different kinds of human victims appropriate to particular gods and goddesses. The section in which it occurs opens with three verses which, the commentator says, were intended to serve as mantras for offerings of human victims. Then follows a series of 179 names of gods in the dative case, each followed by the name of one or more persons in the objective case; thus: ’to Brahma, a Brāhmaṇa, to the Maruts, a Vaiśya,’ etc. The copula verb is omitted and the reader may supply whatever verb he chooses. These names occur also in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa of the Black Yajurveda, with only a few slight variations, but here in some cases the verb alabhate follows. This is derived from the root labh, ’to take, lay hold of’ and the commentators have generally accepted the term to mean ‘should be slaughtered.’[^21]

Dr. Rajendralala Mitra quotes the 179 names and gives explanatory extracts from the Brāhmaṇas and the laws of Apastambha. Probably the number of men actually sacrificed was few, in spite of the large numbers mentioned in the Brāhmaṇas, but whether they were few or not, these passages show that the ritual provided that men should be sacrificed. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa says men are sacrificed and contains a verse which is remarkable for the manner in which it speaks of the human victim. It runs, “Let a fire offering be made with the head of a man. The offering is the rite itself (Yajña); therefore does it make a man part of the sacrificial animals; and hence it is that among animals man is included in sacrifice.”

Reviewing the whole of the evidence Dr. Rajendralala Mitra gives the following summary of the conclusions which may be fairly drawn from the facts cited above:

That looking to the history of human civilization and the rituals of the Hindus, there is nothing to justify the belief that in ancient times the Hindus were incapable of sacrificing human beings to their gods.
That the Sunaḥśepa hymns of the Rig-veda most probably refer to a human sacrifice.
That the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa refers to an actual and not a typical human sacrifice.
That the Puruṣamedha originally required the actual sacrifice of men.
That the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa sanctions human sacrifice in some cases, though it makes the Puruṣamedha emblematic.
That the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa enjoins the sacrifice of a man at the Horse sacrifice.
That the Purāṇas recognize human sacrifices to Chandikā or Durgā, but prohibit the Puruṣamedha rite.
That the Tantras enjoin human sacrifices to Chandikā, and require that when human victims are not available, the effigy of a human being should be sacrificed to her.

To this must be added the evidence for the practice in purely Dravidian sacrifices which have been continued to modern times.

The presumption is thus strong that the real human sacrifice belonged to the time of the early Aryans and that as time went on it was replaced by an emblematic offering, even as the Vaishnavas have, within the last five or six hundred years, replaced the sacrifice of goats and buffaloes to Chandikā by that of pumpkins and sugar-cane at Durgā Pūjā. Human sacrifice has disappeared from modern Hindu ceremonial but traces of the practice still remain, and the sacrifice is even now occasionally accomplished among the Dravidian tribes.

It is beyond the scope of this hand-book to trace the history, so far as it can be discerned, of the process by which the Aryans passed through the period in which, as the Brāhmaṇas and these accounts of the later elaborate sacrificial ceremonial show, the scrupulous performance of religious ritual was the chief feature of their religious life. Sacrifices of such magnitude, ritual so complex cannot have been usual at any time, and a priesthood which insisted on such impossible ceremonialism compelled the minds of thoughtful men to revolt and to seek a purer and higher method of coming into touch with the Unseen.

The rise of this class of thinkers indicated immense changes in the habits of life of those who had wandered into India with their cattle, with arms in their hands, worshipping the sky and the fire and the rain. The Aryans had now become the settled inhabitants of India. There were many who possessed wealth, many who gave themselves to a life of retirement and thought, and that ideal had laid hold on the imagination of the times. Every forest had its hermit. The result was that the teaching of the sages received the obedience that the priesthood had claimed. The way of salvation taught in the Upanishads, or by Mahāvīra the leader of the Jains, or by Gautama the Buddha, put an end to the sacrificial religion which we see in its exaggerated form in the Brāhmaṇas. The Puruṣamedha, the Aśvamedha and all the multitude of animal sacrifices and the eating of flesh among the higher classes ceased. The oblations of soma were no longer offered, and the drinking of soma became unknown. The old gods, Dyaus and Varuna and Agni passed away, and were succeeded in the newer Hinduism that arose through and after the Buddhist revolt by Vishnu and Krishna and Rama and Siva.

The Code of Manu which was drawn up perhaps about one hundred or two hundred years after the time of Christ, that is about seven or eight hundred years after the time of the Brāhmaṇas, says that the prescribed beasts and birds are to be slain by Brahmans for the sacrifice; and also for the support of dependents; for Agastya did so formerly, and adds that there were, indeed, offerings of eatable beasts and birds in the ancient sacrifices and in the oblations of Brahmans and Kshatriyas.[^22]

This reads as if the ancient system was becoming a thing of the past. In the same section Manu says:

He who gives no creature willingly the pain of confinement or death, but seeks the good of all, enjoys bliss without end. Flesh cannot be obtained without injury to animals, and the slaughter of animals obstructs the way to heaven; therefore one should avoid flesh. . . . He who during a hundred years annually performs the horse sacrifice, and he who entirely abstains from flesh, enjoy for their virtue an equal reward. . . . In eating flesh, in drinking intoxicating liquors, and in carnal intercourse there is no sin, for such enjoyments are natural; but abstention from them produces great reward.

Mānava Dharma-śāstra, v. 46, 48, 53, 56.

This is different view to that of the early Aryans. It is illustrated in another passage:

Om is the supreme Brahma; suppressions of breath the highest austerity; but there is nothing more exalted than the Gāyatrī; truth is better than silence. All the Vedic rites, oblational (and) sacrificial, pass away; but this imperishable syllable Om is to be known to be Brahma and also Prajāpati. The sacrifice of muttering (this word, etc.), is better by tenfold than the regular sacrifice; if inaudible, it is a hundredfold (better); and a thousandfold, if mental.

Mānava Dharma-śāstra, ii. 83-85.

And quite a new and spiritualized view of sacrifice is set forth in Manu’s definition of the five great sacrifices that the householder shall perform daily. These are as follows:

Teaching and studying the Vedas is the Veda sacrifice.

Offering cakes and water is the sacrifice to the fathers (pitris).

An offering to fire is the sacrifice to the gods.

An offering of food is the sacrifice to the goblins (bhūtas).

Hospitality to guests is the sacrifice to men.

Manava Dharma-sāstra, iii. 70.

Though the idea of sacrifices of animals and human beings has persisted in the beliefs of the castes whose religion was much influenced by or derived from the religion of the Dravidians and other primitive races in India, it may be safely asserted that the more truly Aryan tribes ceased to perform such sacrifices after the time of the Buddha.