like the wheat in the mummy-pits of Egypt, may have been preserved for ages in the dry climate of India. It is probable that the rice, according to ancient Chinese and Tartar custom, was intended for the use of the deceased in Hades, and that some of the other vessels contained water. They differ essentially in shape from the common terra-cotta vessels of India now in use, but do not indicate any former greater state of refinement. Spear-heads and swords of an antique fashion, masses of crumbling rust, have been found by the villagers under the sarcophagi. The annexed diagram will give some idea of the ground-plan of one of these tombs. B A G E A is the great floor slab. B, C, D, E, the four side-slabs on their edges. F, G, the outer circles of slabs on their edges. No inscriptions or sculptures were found. I have observed similar sepulchres, though not covered by cromlechs, surrounded by similar circles of about 18 feet in diameter, at the Red Hills, and scattered in secluded positions over various parts of Southern India. They exist on the Nilgherris, but nowhere in such great abundance as at Pánduvaram Déwal. I assembled the Brahmans of the village, and asked them whether they had any written history of the spot, or of the city to which so extensive a cemetery belonged. They answered in the negative; but referred the tombs to the Pándus of the heroic age, as they do everything which they are at a loss to account for. The absence of the remains of a town or city in the vicinity may either be regarded as an indication of the high antiquity of these Cyclopean sepulchres, which have survived the obliteration of the more slenderly constructed habitations of their occupants while living; or more probably that the tribes who constructed them were nomades, who dwelt in tents or in rudely-constructed huts. The number of the tombs clearly shows that the people, if a nomade tribe, must have made a long sojourn in this locality. That they must have been a people little advanced in the arts is evident from the absence of all sculpture, embellishment, and inscriptions. Their pottery, however, is often of a very fine description; and that they were acquainted with the art of smelting and working iron, is clear from the imple It is curious that no chisel marks are found on the vast blocks which they have managed to separate, by fire and wedge probably, from the neighbouring granitic rocks; and that the circular apertures through the centre of the side slabs appear to have been knocked through by a hammer or hard stone, and yet done with considerable nicety. The present Wudras (stone quarriers) look at them with astonishment, and say they must have been the work of the Rakshasas, or giants of old. The exterior of the blocks presents as time-worn an aspect as that of the rocks whence they were taken; whereas the blocks in the quarries of Syene and Bijanugger look as fresh as if hewn yesterday. It is well known that when the Brahmins originally settled in Southern India, they found it occupied by sects of Buddhists, and by races of men who, from their savage mode of life, dwelling among rocks and forests, and their determined hostility to the new comers, they are pleased to term Rákshasas-giants, or evil demons. In course of time, many of these tribes were converted to Brahmanism; the rest took refuge in the mountains and most inaccessible parts of the country. The Khonds, Chenchwars, and other half savage tribes that now inhabit the jungles of the Ghauts, are supposed to be their descendants. Yet we look in vain among the haunts of these tribes for sepulchres like those I have attempted to describe. It is certain that they are not those of any of the sects of Buddha, Jineswara, or Brahma, or of the snake-worshippers who preceded them. Whose bones, then, do these huge blocks of granite cover? Throw down one of the side slabs, with its circular aperture, of the sepulchre of Pánduvaram Déwal, and we have the cromlech or dolmen. Clear away the Cyclopean superstructure, and we behold the Druidical circles and the cairn. If we turn our eyes northerly to the mountains of Circassia, we there start with surprise on seeing an absolute fac-simile of the mysterious tombs of Southern India, with the circular aperture complete. (Vide engraving in Bell's Circassia). The Circassian sepulchre is similarly beyond the reach of history. Nor is it difficult to find a family resemblance to the Indian circles and mounds, with their contents of human bones, spear-heads, ashes, and pottery, in those which so thickly stud the vast steppes of Tartary and Northern Europe. They appear to me to be the almost only tangible vestiges remaining to us, except Holy Writ, of certain similarities in the languages of nations now wide asunder, and the traditions which prevail in almost every Eastern nation, of an exten human race, radiating in various directions from one given centre, at a time "when the whole earth was of one family and one speech," which the Lord confounded, and from thence "did scatter them abroad upou the face of all the earth;" in a word, they are the footmarks of the builders of Babel, witnesses of the truth of sacred history-all eloquent in their silence, similarity, and distinctness. It is not a little curious that similar ideas of construction of cromlechs by supernatural means, by dwarfs, and fairies, &c., should obtain both in India and Europe. But I have already observed that the bones found in those of India, and the dimensions of the sarcophagi themselves, do not indicate either that the inmates were dwarfs, or that the human race has at all degenerated in stature since the time in which these skeletons were animate. I also found this to hold good in the measurement of many of the male mummies which lived two thousand years ago in Memphis. ART. V. On the Sacrifice of Human Beings as an Element of the Ancient Religion of India. BY PROFESSOR H. H. WILSON, Director. [Read 20th April, 1850.] I PROPOSE to offer to the Society some illustrations of the sacrifice of human beings as an element of the ancient religion of India. In the first book of the Rámáyana a curious legend is narrated of the son of the Rishi Richíka, named S'unahśephas, who was sold by his father for a hundred thousand cows to Ambarísha, the king of Ayodhya, to supply the place of a sacrificial animal or victim' intended for a sacrifice, but stolen by Indra. S'unahsephas is accordingly conveyed to the place of sacrifice, and being dressed in red garments and decorated with garlands of red flowers, is bound to the stake. By the advice of Viśwámitra he prays to Indra and Agni with two sacred verses (gáthás, according to Schlegel's edition; richas, in Gorresio's) communicated to him by the Rishi, and Indra bestows upon him long life, whilst at the same time the king is not disappointed of his reward. This version of the legend leaves it doubtful whether an actual sacrifice of the victim, or one only typical, is intended. The reference made in the Rámáyaña to the sacred verses by which S'unahsephas propitiated Indra, might lead us to expect some account of the transaction in the text of the Veda; and accordingly, in the first Ashtaka of the Rig-veda the sixth section contains a series of seven hymns, attributed to S'unahsephas, who addresses different divinities in succession. The object of his prayers is not, however, very decidedly pronounced, and in many respects they resemble those of any other worshipper soliciting food, wealth, cattle, and long life; and although liberation from bonds is asked for, yet the text itself intimates that these are only figurative, being the fetters of sin. Neither does it appear that any of the deities called upon rescue him from any situation of personal peril, and the recompense of his praises is the gift of a 1 Schlegel's reading is yajna-pas'u, which he renders simply by victima. Gorresio's text is more explicit: in the first place the victim is carried off from the post whilst the king is engaged, nara-medhena, "intanto ch'egli offriva un sacrifizio umano ;" and in the next, it is said, in a rather questionable hemistich, however, that the theft was a man endowed with all lucky marks, appointed to be a victim, naram lakshana-sampúrûam pasutwe niyojitam. Schlegel's edition also has a passage to the same purport, that the stolen victim is to be recovered, or a man substituted in its place, and virtually, therefore, the two editions agree, although golden chariot by Indra, a present rather incompatible with his position as an intended victim. Hence the late Dr. Rosen was led to infer that the Vaidik hymn, except in one or two doubtful passages, bore no relation to the legend of the Rámáyaña, and offered no indication of a human victim deprecating death." In nullo autem horum carminum (si initium hymni quatuor-vigentesimi excipias, quod sane ita intelligi potest) ne levissimum quidem indicium hominis in vitæ discrimen vocati et mortem deprecantis." Whatever may be the conclusions to be drawn from the legend of S'unahsephas as it appears in the Rámáyaña or in the Rig-veda, there is no question of its purport as it is found in the Aitareya Brahmana which is considered to be the Brahmaña portion of the Rig-veda; and as the story as there told is characteristic of the style of that and similar works, the precise nature of which is yet but little known, none having been translated or printed, and as several curious circumstances are comprised in the tradition, it will not perhaps be uninteresting to have the story as it is there narrated. Harischandra the son of Vedhas, was a prince of the race of Ikshwáku: he had a hundred wives, but no sou. On one occasion the two sages, Nárada and Parvata were residing in his palace; and he said one day to Nárada, "Tell me, why do all creatures, whether possessed of intelligence or devoid of it, desire male progeny? What benefit is derived from a son ?" Nárada thus replied: "A father who beholds the face of a living son discharges his debt [to his forefathers], and obtains immortality. Whatever benefits accrue to living beings upon earth, in fire, or in water, a father finds still more in his son. A father, by the birth of a son, traverses the great darkness [of both worlds]. He is born as it were of himself, and the son is a well freighted boat to bear him across [the ocean of misery]. What matter the impurity [of childhood], the skin [of the student], the beard [of the householder], the penance [of the hermit]. Wish, Brahmans, for a son, for he is a world without reproach. Food, vital air, vesture, dwelling, gold, beauty, cattle, wedlock, a friend, a wife, a daughter, are all contemptible: a son is the light [that elevates his father] to the highest heaven. The husband is himself conceived by his wife, who becomes as it were his mother, and by her in the tenth month he is newly born; therefore is a wife termed genitrix (jáyá), for of her is a man born again (jáyate). Gods and Rishis implant in her great lustre, and the Gods say to men, this is your parent. There is no world for one without a son. This even know the beasts of the field, and to beget offspring pair indiscriminately. with their kind. [A son] is the much-commended certain path to |