Human Sacrifice in the Folk-tales.
There is ample evidence from the folk-tales of the existence of human sacrifice in early times. We have in the tales of Somadeva constant reference to human sacrifices made in honour of Chandikâ or Châmundâ. We find one Muravara, a Turushka or Indo-Scythian, who proposes to make a human sacrifice in memory of his dead father; we have expiatory sacrifices to Chandikâ to save the life of a king. In one of the Panjâb tales a ship will not leave port till a human victim is offered. In one of the modern tales we have an account of a man and his family who sacrifice themselves before the god Jyoti Bara, “the great diviner,” who is worshipped by the Sânsya gypsies.[55]
The folk-tales also disclose ample evidence of cannibalism. The Magian cannibals of the Book of Sindibad used to eat human flesh raw, and the same tale is told by Herodotus of the Massagetae, the Padaei of India, whom Col. Dalton identifies with the Birhors of Chota Nâgpur, and of the Essedones near Lake Moeotis.[56] It is needless to say that Indian folk-tales abound with references to the same practices. We have cannibal Râkshasas in abundance, and in one of Somadeva’s stories Devaswâmin, the Brâhman, looks out and finds his “wife’s mouth stained with blood, for she had devoured his servant and left nothing of him but the bones.” And in the tale of Asokadatta we have a woman who climbs on a stake and cuts slices of the flesh of an impaled criminal, which she eats.[57] In the Mahâbhârata we find the legend of Kalmashapada, who, while hunting, meets Saktri, son of Vasishtha, and strikes him with his whip. The incensed sage cursed him to become a cannibal. This curse was heard by Viswamitra, the rival of Vasishtha, and he so contrived that the body of the king became possessed by a man-eating Râkshasa. Kalmashapada devoured Saktri and the hundred sons of Vasishtha, who finally restored him to his original state. In a tale recently collected among the Drâvidian Mânjhis, a girl accidentally cuts her finger and some of the blood falls upon the greens, whereupon her brothers, finding that it flavoured the mess, killed and devoured her.[58]