at the present day, by the military tribes,. more familiar to fanguinary institutions; that dreadful rite, I fay, could not fail of making them fpeedily acquainted with the anatomy of the human body. Their having been anciently accustomed to these oblations, from their present horror of human and beftial flaughter, which commenced with the avatar of Buddha, who forbade them under the feverest penalties, was once ftrenuously denied; but more familiar acquaintance with the Sanfcreet language, and their original inftitutions, obtained at Benares itself by learned Orientalists of our own nation, have placed the matter beyond all doubt; and the subject has been already amply canvassed in preceding volumes. It was on this account that I hefitated in speaking decifively when difcourfing concerning their advance in anatomical science. But, if doubt should still remain, let him that hesitates attend to the RUDHIRADHYAYA, or fanguinary chapter, in the fifth volume of Afiatic Researches, tranflated verbatim by Mr. Blaquiere from the Calica Purana, and he will not fail of being convinced of the addiction to this nefarious crime of the ancient, whatever may be the placid character

of

of the modern, Indian. No precepts can be conceived more exprefs, nor indeed more horrible, than thofe which the text of this tremendous chapter enjoins.

c

By a human facrifice, attended with the forms here laid down, DEVI, the goddess Cali, is pleased one thousand years, and, by a facrifice of three men, one hundred thousand years. By human flesh, Camachya, Chandica, and Bhairava, who affume my shape, are pleased one thousand years. An oblation of blood, which has been rendered pure by holy texts, is equal to ambrofia; the head and flesh alfo afford much delight to the goddess Chandica. Let, therefore, the learned, when paying adoration to the goddefs, offer blood and the head; and, when performing the facrifice to fire, make oblations of flesh.

1

"Let the performer of the facrifice be cautious never to offer bad flesh, as the head and blood are looked upon by themselves equal to ambrofia.

"The performance of the facrifice with a Chandráhafa, or Catri, (two weapons of the axe-kind,) is reckoned the beft mode; and with a hatchet, or knife, or faw, or a fangcul, the second beft; and the beheading with a

hoe,

hoe, or Bhallac, (an inftrument of the fpadekind,) the inferior mode.

"Let not the learned use the axe before they have invoked it by holy texts, which have been mentioned heretofore, and framed by the learned.

"Let the facrificer fay, Hrang Hring. Cali, Cali, O horrid-toothed goddess! eat, cut, destroy all the malignant, cut with this axe; bind, bind; feize, feize; drink blood å fpheng, fpheng; fecure, fecure. Salutations to Cali.

"Let the face of the victim be turned towards the north, or else let the facrificer turn his own face to the north, and the victim's to the caft. Having immolated the victim, let him without fail mix falt, &c. as beforementioned, with the blood.

"The veffel in which the blood is to be prefented is to be according to the circumftances of the offerer of gold, filver, copper, brafs, or leaves fewed together, or of earth, or of tutenague, or of any of the fpecics of wood used in facrifices. Human blood must always be prefented in a metallic or earthern veffel; and never, on any account, in a vesfel made of leaves or fimilar fubftance."

Again, it is faid, "Let a human victim be facrificed at a place of holy worship, or at a cemetery where dead bodies are buried. Let the oblation be performed in the part of the cemetery called Heruca, which has been already described, or at a temple of Camachya, or on a mountain. Now attend to the mode.

"The cemetery reprefents me, and is called Bhairava; it has also a part called Tantranga : the cemetery muft be divided into these two divifions, and a third called Heruca.

"The human victim is to be immolated in the east divifion, which is facred to Bhairava; the head is to be presented in the fouth divifion, which is looked upon as the place of fculls facred to Bhairavi; and the blood is to be presented in the west divifion, which is denominated Heruca.

Having immolated a human victim, with all the requifite ceremonies at a cemetery or holy place, let the facrificer be cautious not to caft eyes upon the victim.

"On other occafions, alfo, let not the facrificer caft eyes upon the victim immolated, but prefent the head with eyes averted.

"The

"The victim must be a perfon of good appearance, and be prepared by ablutions and requifite ceremonies, fuch as eating confecrated food the day before, and by abftinence from flesh and venery, and must be adorned with chaplets of flowers and befmeared with fandal-wood."*

The early addiction of the Indians to these fanguinary rites, thefe minute injunctions as to the mode of facrificing the humán victims, and the auguries deduced from them, being thus fully demonftrated to have taken place from the Puranas, the books holden moft facred among them next to the Vedas,

to fay nothing of what they must infallibly have learned from the fame conduct in regard to beftial facrifices; for the regulation of which, very minute and circumftantial precepts are given in the fame chapter; after thefe authentic ftatements, I fay, it is impoffible to give credit to thofe who affirm that their ancestors were totally ignorant of the internal structure of the human body, and that a race, fo curious in their researches into natural history, were

* Afiatic Refearches, vol. v. p. 378.

unacquainted