Kathasaritsagara (the Ocean of Story)
by Somadeva | 1924 | 1,023,469 words | ISBN-13: 9789350501351
This is the English translation of the Kathasaritsagara written by Somadeva around 1070. The principle story line revolves around prince Naravāhanadatta and his quest to become the emperor of the Vidhyādharas (‘celestial beings’). The work is one of the adoptations of the now lost Bṛhatkathā, a great Indian epic tale said to have been composed by ...
The history of human sacrifice
Note: this text is extracted from Book VIII, chapter 46.
“Then the gods took counsel together, and came to him, and said to him: ‘By all means give us your body for a human sacrifice’. When he heard that, he gave them his own body, although they were his enemies; noble men do not turn their backs on a suppliant, but bestow on him even their lives”
The word which I have translated “human sacrifice” is puruṣamedha. For the prevalence of human sacrifices among all nations of antiquity see Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, translated by Stallybrass, vol. i, pp. 44 et seq.; see also Tylor’s Primitive Culture, vol. ii, pp. 246, 353, 36l, 365. Dr Rajendra Lāl Mitra, Rai Bahadur, in an essay in the Joum.As.Soc.Bengal for 1876, entitled “Human Sacrifices in India,” traces the history of the practice in India, and incidentally among the principal nations of antiquity.
The following is his own summary of his conclusions with respect to the practice in India:
(1) That, looking to the history of human civilisation, 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.
(2) That the Śunaḥśepha hymns of the Ṛg-Veda Saṃhitā most probably refer to a human sacrifice.
(3) That the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa refers to an actual, and not a typical, human sacrifice.
(4) That the puruṣamedha originally required the actual sacrifice of men.
(5) That the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa sanctions human sacrifice in some cases, but makes the puruṣamedha emblematic.
(6) That the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa enjoins the sacrifice of a man at the Horse Sacrifice.
(7) That the Purāṇas recognise human sacrifices to Caṇḍikā, but prohibit the puruṣamedha rite.
(8) That the Tantras enjoin human sacrifices to Caṇḍikā and require that, when human victims are not available, an effigy of a human being should be sacrificed to her.
Of the sacrifices to Caṇḍikā we have enough and to spare in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara. Strange to say, it appears that human sacrifices were offered in Greece on Mount Lykaion in Arcadia even in the time of Pausanias. [See Frazer’s edition, vol. iv, p. 386.] Dim traditions with respect to the custom are still found among the inhabitants of that region (Bernhard Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, p. 27).
Cf. the institution of the ### connected with the worship of Apollo (Preller, Griechische Mythologie, vol. i, p. 202; see also pp. 240, 257, and vol. ii, pp. 310, 466); Herodotus, vii, 197; Plato, Minos, p. 315; and Preller, Römische Mythologie, p. 104.——See Vol. I, p. 116n1. The whole question of human sacrifice in all parts of the world has been fully treated by a number of scholars in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. vi, pp. 840-867. I would, however, add one useful reference: E. M. Loeb, “The Blood Sacrifice Complex,” Memoirs of the Amer. Anth. Ass., No. 30, 1923. —n.m.p.