blood and taking life (unless in war) which became so conspicuous and beautiful a feature of later Brahmanism, was already growing on the Indo-Aryas, and the same Brâhmana-the Shatapatha-formally declares bloodless offerings to be more acceptable and fully as efficient, as usual, in the form of a legend or parable :

"The gods at first took man as victim [literally 'sacrificial animal.'] Then the sacrificial virtue [medha] left him and went into the horse. They took the horse, but the medha went out of him also and into the steer. Soon it went from the steer into the sheep, from the sheep into the goat, from the goat into the earth. Then they dug

the earth up, seeking for the medha and found it in rice and barley. Therefore, as much virtue as there was in all those five animals, so much there now is in this sacrificial cake [havis made of rice and barley], i. e., for him who knows this. The ground grains answer to the hair, the water [with which the meal is mixed] to the skin, the mixing and stirring to the flesh, the hardened cake [in the baking] to the bones, the ghee with which it is anointed to the marrow. So the five component parts of the animal are contained in the havis.

18. Human sacrifice is not mentioned in so many words in the Rig-Veda; but it is alluded to, transparently, to use the Vedic phrase, "for those who know." Not only in verse 8 of the Horse hymn, quoted above, but more undoubtedly in two texts which allude to the rescue of one SHUNAHSHEPHA, an adopted son of the Rishi Vishvâmitra:

Bound Shunahshepha thou, O Agni, didst deliver from a thousand posts because he prayed fervently to thee; so deliver us, too, O shining hotar, from our bonds.—(V., 27.)

Váruna the king will deliver us, he whom the captive Shunahshepha invoked once on a time. For Shunahshepha, being trebly bound to the post, called out to the Âditya.—(I., 24, 12, 13.)

The

An allusion to the same old story is certainly contained in verse 21 of the following hymn, I., 25: "That I may live, take from me the upper rope, loose the middle, and remove the lowest." Indeed, tradition was so positive on the point that it ascribed both these hymns to Shunahshepha himself. This would show that Váruna's "threefold fetters or nooses" are not always the allegorical ones of darkness, sickness, and death, but like most of the RigVeda's mysticism, have an underlying realistic meaning to them-very realistic in this case. story itself we find in one of the great Brâhmanas, possibly the oldest, the AITAREYA, which belongs to the Rig-Veda, and therefore was bound to explain such obscure passages and allusions. This is convincing evidence of the fact that though the Brâhmanas are necessarily later, they may and often do contain matter older than the Rig itself. For what is alluded to in a work as generally known, must have existed before that work did. The following is the story condensed.'

19. There was a powerful king, HARISHCHANDRA, who had a hundred wives, but no son. By the advice of a great sage who lived in his house, he went to Váruna the King and said: "May a son be born to me, and I shall sacrifice him to thee!" Váruna said "Yes," and a boy was born to the king who named him ROHITA. Váruna soon claimed the child. But the father succeeded in obtaining respite after respite, until Rohita grew to young manhood, and

1 It is also told in the Râmâyana and some Purânas, with unessential variations.

was girt with his armor. Then Váruna would wait no longer, and the king could find no more excuses. So he said to his son: "Child, he gave thee to me, that I sacrifice thee to him." The son said "No," took his bow, and went to the forest, where he lived for a year. Then Váruna vented his anger on the king, whom he afflicted with dropsy. Rohita, meanwhile, met a Brâhman on his wanderings, who advised him to travel. It was Indra in human form. "The fortune of a man who sits," he said, "sits also. It rises when he rises, sleeps when he sleeps, and moves when he moves. Travel! A traveller finds honey, a traveller finds sweet figs. Look at the happiness of the sun, who, travelling, never tires. Travel!" Rohita travelled six years, at the end of which he met in the forest a starving Rishi, of the holy Angiras race, who had three sons. Rohita said to him: "Rishi, I give thee a hundred cows; I ransom myself with one of these thy sons." The father embraced the eldest and said: "Not him!" The mother embraced the youngest and said: "Not him!" So they agreed to sell Shunahshepha, the middle son. And Rohita took him to the king, who offered him to Váruna in exchange for his son. Váruna said: "Yes; for a Brâhman is better than a Kshatriya," and ordered the king to prepare a great royal sacrifice. Shunahshepha was to be the victim for the day when the Soma is offered to the gods. Vishvâmitra was the hotar on this occasion. But when Shunahshepha was prepared, they could get nobody to bind him to the sacrificial post. His own father, who had sold him, did it for a hundred more

COWS.

to the gods."

But no one could be found to kill him. His father declared himself willing to do that also for still a hundred more, and approached his son, whetting his knife. Shunahshepha thought: "They will really kill me, as if I were not a man.' I shall pray He prayed to them all in succession, one sending him on to another. Ushas came last. While he prayed to her his fetters were loosed and dropped off him, and the king's dropsy left him, so he was well again, and the victim that was to have been was requested, instead, to perform the sacrifice of the day. The Rishi now claimed his son and wanted to take him back with him. But Shunahshepha absolutely refused to follow him, appealing for protection to Vishvâmitra, who supported him, saying: "Dreadful was he as he stood with his knife ready to kill. Be not his son. Come and be my son." Shunahshepha said: "Tell us thyself, O son of a king, how I, who am an Ângîrasa, shall become thy son." Vishvâmitra replied: "Thou shalt be the eldest of my sons, thy offspring shall be the first; thou shalt receive the heritage which the gods have given me." On this understanding the adoption took place. Vishvâmitra had a hundred sons, fifty of whom (the elder half) rebelled at haying a

2

1 On such occasions, explains the commentator, it was customary to release the man and the larger animals at the last moment, after their purification by carrying the fire around them (see above, the legend from the Shatapatha), and only the sheep and the goat were killed. Thus was sacrifice commuted into consecration. (See Story of Assyria, pp. 121, 124.)

2 Vishvâmitra, though a Brâhman in dignity and a Rishi, was, as we know, a Râjana by birth.

Their father cursed

stranger placed over them. them, and they went forth as outcasts, they and their descendants becoming the worst of Dasyus. The other fifty cheerfully submitted, and, receiving their father's blessing, lived happy and prosperous.'

20. It is very easy to disentangle the kernel of this story from the Brahmanic additions and flourishes, which, however, for once do not mar it. Disapproval shows from every line, and we are allowed to infer that already at a very early period this most awful of all sacred rites was only simulated in the performance, instead of being carried out to the bitter end. But that very disapproval is manifestly a protest against something that really existed, and we cannot exonerate our Aryan ancestors from the blot which appears to rest on all races—that of having, at some time, practised the abomination of human sacrifices.

1 See Max Müller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 408-419.