DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.641#0132
THE HINDOO MYTHOLOGY. 125
* The Jatus, a people who abound in these parts,' says a
friend, in a letter from Agra, dated May, 1812, 'destroy
their female children as soon as born; but being now afraid
of the English, they remove their pregnant women before
the time of delivery into the district of the raja of Bhuriitu-
pooru, that they may there commit these horrid murders
with impunity. Oh! the dark places of the earth are full
of the habitations of cruelty ! In these parts there are not
many women burned with their husbands, and when they
do bum, they are not held down with bamboos, but left to
themselves and the fire; but if any one run away or jump
out, they cut her down with a sword, and throw her into
the fire again. This was done at a flight of steps just by,
a little before the English took this place; since which
time I have not heard of any such events occuiring.'
SECT. XXXIII.—Ascetics devoured in Forests by Wild
Beasts.
Beside the dreadful waste of human life in practising
superstitious austerities, great numbers of Hindoo devotees,
who visit forests as an act of seclusion from the world,
perish by wild beasts. The author, when on a visit to
Sagiiru island in the year 1806, was informed by a yogee
that six of his companions had been devoured there by tygers
in the three preceding months; that while absent in the
forest gathering sticks, he heard their cries, and looking
over the wall of the temple yard in which they lived, he saw
the tygers dragging them by the neck into the forest.
Other forests infested by wild beasts are visited by these
yogees, many of whom are devoured every year. Numbers
* The Jatus, a people who abound in these parts,' says a
friend, in a letter from Agra, dated May, 1812, 'destroy
their female children as soon as born; but being now afraid
of the English, they remove their pregnant women before
the time of delivery into the district of the raja of Bhuriitu-
pooru, that they may there commit these horrid murders
with impunity. Oh! the dark places of the earth are full
of the habitations of cruelty ! In these parts there are not
many women burned with their husbands, and when they
do bum, they are not held down with bamboos, but left to
themselves and the fire; but if any one run away or jump
out, they cut her down with a sword, and throw her into
the fire again. This was done at a flight of steps just by,
a little before the English took this place; since which
time I have not heard of any such events occuiring.'
SECT. XXXIII.—Ascetics devoured in Forests by Wild
Beasts.
Beside the dreadful waste of human life in practising
superstitious austerities, great numbers of Hindoo devotees,
who visit forests as an act of seclusion from the world,
perish by wild beasts. The author, when on a visit to
Sagiiru island in the year 1806, was informed by a yogee
that six of his companions had been devoured there by tygers
in the three preceding months; that while absent in the
forest gathering sticks, he heard their cries, and looking
over the wall of the temple yard in which they lived, he saw
the tygers dragging them by the neck into the forest.
Other forests infested by wild beasts are visited by these
yogees, many of whom are devoured every year. Numbers