[255] Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 121.
[256] Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan, p. 53.
We find that various peoples who at a certain period have been addicted to the practice of human sacrifice, have afterwards, at a more advanced stage of civilisation, voluntarily given it up. The cause of this is partly an increase, or expansion, of the sympathetic sentiment, partly a change of ideas. With the growth of enlightenment men would lose faith in this childish method of substitution, and consequently find it not only useless, but objectionable; and any sentimental disinclination to the practice would by itself, in the course of time, lead to the belief that the deity no longer cares for it, or is averse to it. Brahmanism gradually abolished the immolation of human victims, incompatible as it was with the precept of ahimsâ, or respect for everything that has life; “the liberation of the victim, or the substitution in its stead and place of a figure made of flour paste, both of which were at first matter of sufferance, became at length matter of requirement.”[257] According to the Mahabharata, the priest who performs a human sacrifice is cast into hell.[258] In Greece, in the historic age, the practice was held in horror at least by all the better minds, though it was regarded as necessary on certain occasions.[259] It was strongly condemned by enlightened Romans. Cicero speaks of it as a “monstrous and barbarous practice” still disgracing Gaul in his day;[260] and Pliny, referring to the steps taken by Tiberius to stop it, declares it impossible to estimate the debt of the world to the Romans for their efforts to put it down.[261]
[257] Barth, Religions of India, p. 97.
[258] Supra, p. 458.
[259] Stengel, op. cit. p. 117. Cf. Donaldson, loc. cit. p. 464.
[260] Cicero, Pro Fonteio, 10 (21).
[261] Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxx. 4 (1).
The growing reluctance to offer human sacrifice led to various practices intended to replace it.[262] Speaking of the Italian custom of dedicating as a sacrifice to the gods every creature that should be born in the following spring, Festus adds that, since it seemed cruel to kill innocent boys and girls, they were kept till they had grown up, then veiled and driven beyond the boundaries.[263] Among various peoples human effigies or animals were offered instead of men.
[262] Cf. Krause, ‘Die Ablösung der Menschenopfer,’ in Kosmos, 1878, iii. 76 sqq.