Somewhat surprisingly, this Hindu content-creator agrees that Hinduism is "pagan". I actually asked ChatGPT what "Daitya Dhamma" means. It seems to be a jocular neologism roughly translated "the religion of the anti-gods / titans" (usually called asuras in both Hinduism and Buddhism).
A little reminder. A propos the recent blog post on Sabine Hossenfelder and the role of mathematics in the hard (oh-so-hard) sciences.
Ufologist Richard Dolan discusses a recent paper analyzing every video released by the Trump admin as part of their "UFO disclosure". Unsurprisingly, the paper reaches the conclusion that the lack of "telemetry data" makes it impossible to know what the UAPs captured on camera really are. For all we know, they could be birds or small drones. It´s not even certain whether stationary objects (which seem to be hovering) are really stationary! And so on.
The refusal of the US government to release the relevant data means that the "disclosure" is very partial...at best. It´s compatible with the conspiracy theory (not discussed in the video) that UFOs are really earthly aircraft, and that the military is intentionally psy-opping the public into believing in extraterrestrials as an excellent cover for its secret projects. Of course, the devious way in which the "disclosure" is made is *also* compatible with the UFOs actually being extraterrestrial, the military trying its best to hide that fact. Maybe that´s the thing: one purpose of the psy-op is to create confusion and conflict among UFO researchers.
My personal impression is that there is enough data to suggest that something genuinely anomalous is going on. Which doesn´t preclude all kinds of psy-ops and black-ops, of course. Both "ours" and "theirs" (as in Russia and China). Maybe Greenland is sending auk-like drones to mess with the Don´s ballroom blitz? That was a joke, but you do get my point...
There is also the very distinct possibility that neither the US military nor anyone else knows what in heaven´s name (pun intended) is going on. *We* know of course. It´s that "8th tower" going mustang. But hey, don´t tell the CIA!
Några hübinetter om det stundande valet. Observera orsaken till det sjunkande valdeltagandet: det är invandringen. Bland etniska svenskar verkar valdeltagandet vara 91%. Bland etniska svenskar med post-gymnasial utbildning är det 97% (sic).
Själv är jag en icke-etnisk svensk som har post-gymnasial utbildning och allvarligt funderat på att stå över valet, men av olika orsaker kommer jag att rösta även denna gång. Fast jag är tydligen en anomali hur man än vrider och vänder på det! Okej, *det* är jag åtminstone bekväm med, LOL.
I årets val är väljarkåren mer heterogen än någonsin tidigare
Den obekväma slutsatsen av den här undersökningen verkar vara att invandrare väldigt ofta *inte* ändrar sina värderingar och att massinvandring således kan förändra mottagarlandets "värdegrund". Men TH vill kanske inte dra sådana slutsatser här?
Invandrare från Östeuropa mer lika MENA än majoritetsbefolkningen
It seems the never-ending Afghan conflict between the lesser greater evil and the greater greater evil (with the pure evil being thrown in for good measure) is starting all over again. At least according to the video above, which discusses an anti-Taliban resistance group called the AUF, headed by a former covert operations specialist from the old regime. OK, let me guess. If and when the Dems retake the White House, he will be declared the greater good and receive some quality military assistance from The Man? Indeed, the AUF might be receiving it already, since their office is in Virginia! And the official launch of the organization was made through a US Neo-Con website...
It begins anew.
Greta Thunberg´s future husband? He´s perfect: autistic, nerdy, speaks English with a terrible British accent (I mean, the guy even *is* British) and is - wait for it - a climate change activist! I mean, dude. He´s probably privileged, too, since he pays people to research and produce his content.
As for this video, it´s click bait. The message of this overly-long YouTube clip is - if you follow it to the end -that we haven´t lost. We can still save the planet...by renewable energy, diminishing our individual carbon footprints, and (surprise) vote for pro-climate politicians. Imagine that. We can actually *vote* ourselves out of this predicament. Let me guess. Green Party?
But sure, he complains a lot about the evil oil companies. Gotta bait the young radical savages with something, I suppose. The funny thing is that all the negative stats he presents proves that we really have lost. Oh, and if he ever dates Greta, I´m sure she can tell him about how fucked CSC really is...
What´s up with all the pessimism? Carthage was rebuilt, so was Jericho, New Rome survived the demise of the old version. There are more Jews and American Indians today than before they were supposedly "genocided". There are more Germans, too. And most of them are good liberals, jawohl. And oh, the dinosaurs survived that once-in-a-planetary-lifetime asteroid collision. Yes, really. They are in your backyard right now. We call them "birds".
So why is everyone so damn negative all the time? I mean, puleeze! Progress is eternal. As for the Fermi paradox, we really are alone. Which means we can expand forever. In all directions. Right now.
Just have to shoot all those pessimists first!
Hur kan AI leda till högre produktivitet om det krävs människor för att dubbelkolla allt den gör, så att den inte gör fel? Är AI verkligen framtiden, eller världshistoriens största blåsning?
Och vad händer när bubblan spricker...
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| - I assume your breakaway civilization didn´t work out, huh? |
"Learn how to code" was the smug response of mandarin liberals (or was it pink slip libertarians?) to the crisis of working class Amerik(w)a. Or something. But 50% of all code is apparently made by AI these days. So now what? "Learn how to monitor AI coding"?
What if I just want my fucking real physical job back? We are monitoring the situation...
Some scientists apparently un-ironically speculate that we may live *inside* a black hole. Well, that would explain a thing or two, I suppose...
Note what Sabine is saying here: there are several competing theories about black holes, each mathematically "correct". Yet, only one of them can be true - or none of them are. So naaah, you can´t just "shut up and do the math", as some midwits are trying to tell us.
Shut up *and do the empirical research* is the bottom line here. Note also that many scientists themselves suspect that the simplest explanation (a black hole is a singularity) simply can´t be true...and so the speculations continue.
I actually see that as a singularly good thing!
Vacuum birefringence something-something. Magnetars turn nothingness into transparent crystal. Schwinger limit. Bizarre stuff. Therefore G-d? Or the interface between purusha and prakriti...
Crystal clear!
Overheard on the web: "We finally found the solution to the Fermi paradox". Note that the AI is called Evil! Intelligent design, anyone?
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| - Yes, Korea is here somewhere! Never heard of Oman... |
Marx said that world history always repeats itself twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Somebody has proposed burlesque as the third repetition. I´m not sure what stage Trump´s foreign policy has reached, but it´s certainly beyond farce at this point.
Trump recently said that he will declare the Strait of Hormuz American territory. A few days later some spokesman of the Trump administration dismissed the statement as a joke?! Then, the erratic president threatened to "bomb the shit" out of Oman.
Another jocular remark, I suppose?
But perhaps Trump can still do something properly tragic, since he decided to scale down US involvement in a joint military exercise with South Korea, citing the ROK´s refusal to back his increasingly quixotic adventure in the Gulf. Instead, he bragged about having good relations with North Korea! The same North Korea which may be in the process of sending tens of thousands of fresh troops to aid the Russians in Ukraine.
It will be interesting to see if Trump´s end will be a tragedy, a farce or even a burlesque. Maybe the Don could at least give us one more performance? For old times sake.
Gästskribenten har såklart rätt. Jack Hildéns virriga "slutreplik" längst ned. Kulturvänstern stretar på...
Sverigedemokraterna vill benåda personer som dömts för "förtal" för att ha avslöjat *dömda* pedofiler. Varför låter vänstern SD stjäla dessa frågor?
Översättning: Aftonbladet svänger och accepterar KD som möjligt stödparti till SAP. Vilket antagligen betyder att SAP-ledningen gjort samma sak.
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| Gemini´s response to the prompt: "Can you make a picture of a holy man who looks both like Jesus and a Shaiva ascetic?" |
Don´t tell Doreen Virtue, LOL. This is ChatGPT´s response to a (hypothetical!) question from my digital alter ego...
If I consider Shiva to be my guru and Shaivism-Shaktism as my religion, could Christ still be my kula-devata?
An American wakes up from a coma, speaks Swedish?! (Not his native language).
Den här "utredningen" är helt jävla fjollig. Det är uppenbart *inte* fråga om "falska valaffischer" (bara en byfåne kan förväxla dem med originalen) utan ironiska konstverk. Men okej, för att undvika "utredningar" kanske konststudenterna borde koncentrera sig på att håna Trump. Som nästan ingen i Sverige stödjer...
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| Credit: Luc Viatour |
I wouldn´t call the recent solar eclipse a nothing-burger, but it wasn´t as dramatic as the one on August 11, 1999.
That was apparently the most-viewed such event in human history, since it moved over large parts of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. I saw it from an undisclosed location in Central Europe (hence not from Sweden). It was quite dramatic, despite not being total at the place where I was staying. The sunlight became dimmer and weird, the temperature dropped from hot summer to almost cold in a matter of minutes, and all birds stopped singing, giving rise to an eerie silence. Then, everything went back to normal again!
Thousands of people had congregated around Lake Balaton in Hungary, a popular tourist destination, where the eclipse was total. This included large contingents of Neo-Pagans who supposedly went there to "worship the sun". Ahem, the sun is eclipsed, asshats. A lot of revellers had joined the crowds, as well. The distinction between them and the "spiritual" people wasn´t clear. (Compare Stonehenge at Midsummer.) Several TV networks transmitted live from Balaton. It did look very, very weird when all of a sudden, everything went almost pitch dark!
So what happened here in Sweden earlier this evening? First, only a few people came out to watch the eclipse in my neighborhood. Were the rest looking at it from indoors? The sunlight did change from normal to dim in a matter of seconds, but the temperature drop didn´t feel as dramatic as in Central Europe back in 1999, and some crows were still cawing! On the other hand, I didn´t see any birds actually flying around, and the local cat was sitting still in the middle of a pedestrian walk. The ending wasn´t very dramatic either, since the partial eclipse happened just before sunset.
And for some reason, my right eye still hurts...
That was that, I suppose.
It seems both neuroscience and psychology are in crisis. Sabine Hossenfelder has the updates. Shit like this will eventually make the public (including the educated part - they are the only ones paying attention anyway) skeptical towards the entire scientific establishment. And maybe even the project itself? Which I wouldn´t consider a positive development. Note also the crises in quantum physics and cosmology...
Credit: TheGoodEndedHappily
Från Illustrerad Vetenskap: "Det kommer inte att bli någon solförmörkelse i Skandinavien igen förrän år 2126. Och nästa totala solförmörkelse som kan iakttas i Sverige inträffar dessvärre först den 25 maj 2141 klockan 10.04."
Vi får väl åka ut i viking som vanligt, då...
Putin says that the Russian Federation may seize EU-related ships operating under a flag of convenience, in response to EU actions against the Russian "shadow fleet". Well, at least he isn´t threatening to nuke us! Always something.
It would be ironic if the war in Ukraine would lead to the effective collapse of flags of convenience...
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| Credit: Charles J Sharp |
Moderaterna låtsas vara upprörda över ett vanligt debattinlägg från Håkan Juholt. Tänker alla köra Annie Lööf-kortet och "jag-är-(lätt)kränkt" i den här valrörelsen?
Jag betvivlar inte att denna historia är "sann" på något sätt, men den är ju inte hela sanningen. Från en sajt som promoterar "Boken om hopp: NT", omnämnd i förra inlägget.
Något som heter Bible for the Nations har skickat ut gratisex av Nya Testamentet till...jag vet inte...alla hushåll i Sverige? Fick den i brevlådan för några dagar sedan. Den heter "Boken om hopp: NT". Tydligen baserad på Svenska Folkbibeln. Som jag haft länge. Men tack ändå...antar jag.
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| Credit: Nicor |
50,000 North Korean soldiers may be deployed in Russia soon, according to Ukrainian president Zelensky. Something tells me they´re not there on vacation! Their end destination may very well be Ukraine itself.
That Russia needs cannon fodder from *North Korea* does show that Putin´s war isn´t going entirely according to plan. On the other hand, nobody cares where the soldiers come from if the trick turns out to work...
Last time around, Russia and their original ally (then about 15,000 strong) did manage to take back control over the portions of the Kursk region which had been captured by Ukraine during a surprise offensive. However, this obviously wasn´t enough to defeat the Ukrainian military overall.
I assume this is another "trial balloon". And since the Korean People´s Army is supposedly two million men strong, Putin could potentially keep up the pressure for years. Assuming Kim Jong-un is interested, obviously.
We live in "interesting" times.
I don´t reeeeally believe in astrology, but surely a total eclipse of the Sun in the Sun sign Leo must mean something? I don´t know, the end of the world or shit of that nature? Or at the very least the end of Leo!
Yet, there is relatively little apocalyptic speculation on YouTube related to the eclipse - at least as far as I can see. OK, let me guess. The eclipse isn´t visible in the United States? And "America" is the world. Or the universe?
Is the next lunar eclipse (28 August) visible in the US of A? If so, I suppose *that* will be the next doomer extravaganza, hah hah.
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| Credit: Alejandro Bayer Tamayo |
Inga direkta nyheter, ärligt talat. Läs innan AB låser artikeln.
ChatGPT interprets the story of Siruttondar a bit too nicely, in my opinion, but it´s still an interesting conversation...
How did the Nayanars and Shaiva Siddhanta look at human sacrifice?
Yes, and the Nāyanār tradition gives us a particularly revealing answer, because it contains an apparently shocking story that could easily be mistaken for an endorsement of human sacrifice.
The short version is:
*Śaiva Siddhānta did not teach human sacrifice as a legitimate ordinary religious practice. But the Nāyanār hagiographies sometimes use the imagery of sacrifice—including human flesh—to dramatize absolute devotion to Śiva.
The most important example is Siruttoṇḍar (Sirutondar) Nāyanār.
Siruttoṇḍar was one of the 63 Nāyanārs, and his story is found in the medieval Periya Purāṇam of Cēkkiḻār.
Śiva appears to him disguised as a frightening Bhairava-like ascetic and asks for an extraordinarily disturbing meal: the flesh of a five-year-old only son. Siruttoṇḍar and his wife, rather than refusing, sacrifice their own son and prepare the flesh for their guest. When the ascetic then asks them to call the boy, the child miraculously appears alive; the ascetic disappears and Śiva reveals himself.
This is not presented as a successful human sacrifice to Śiva.
The crucial narrative fact is that the sacrifice is ultimately undone. The child is restored, the supposed flesh disappears, and Śiva reveals that the entire episode was a test of devotion.
That makes the story very different from something like the Kālikā Purāṇa's explicit ritual prescriptions for narabali.
The story is testing the proposition:
Is there anything that a devotee loves more than Śiva and Śiva's devotees?
Siruttoṇḍar's defining virtue is dāsya—servanthood. His regular practice is to feed Śiva's devotees before eating himself.
The Bhairava figure takes this principle to an impossible extreme.
The devotee effectively says:
"If this is genuinely what Śiva's devotee requires, I will give even what is most precious to me."
And then Śiva reveals that he never actually wanted the child dead.
So the "sacrifice" functions as a test of attachment, not as a prescription for ritual killing.
This is very similar structurally to stories such as Abraham and Isaac: the apparent demand for a human sacrifice is a test, and the human victim ultimately survives.
The fact that Śiva appears as a terrifying ascetic/Bhairava is not accidental.
Bhairava represents the side of Śiva that stands outside ordinary social boundaries—death, cremation grounds, skulls, impurity, radical asceticism.
So the story asks the devotee to confront the ultimate taboo:
Can you recognize Śiva even when he appears in a form that horrifies you?
And there's a second layer:
Can you surrender even your most cherished possession to Śiva?
The answer ultimately turns out to be:
Yes—but Śiva does not actually require you to destroy it.
That is quite different from saying:
"Śiva wants human sacrifices."
This is where we should distinguish the Nāyanār movement from other Śaiva traditions.
The historical Nāyanārs flourished approximately between the 6th and 9th centuries, and their devotional hymns—the Tēvāram and related works—became foundational for Tamil Śaivism.
Their characteristic religious emphasis is:
rather than sacrificial violence.
The Periya Purāṇam, written much later in the 12th century, elaborates their lives into elaborate hagiographical narratives.
So we should not read every bizarre event in the Periya Purāṇam as a historical description of what Śaiva devotees actually did.
Classical Śaiva Siddhānta is not a religion of ritual human sacrifice.
Its basic framework is traditionally expressed as:
Pati — Śiva, the Lord
paśu — the individual soul
pāśa — the bonds that bind the soul
The soul is liberated through Śiva's grace, together with appropriate knowledge, conduct, ritual and devotion.
The ideal sacrifice therefore becomes increasingly internal and devotional.
Rather than:
"Kill another human being for Śiva."
the theological trajectory is:
"Offer yourself to Śiva."
And "yourself" increasingly means:
This is quite compatible with the broader transformation of sacrifice we were discussing earlier.
Śaiva Siddhānta developed out of a religious environment that included Āgamic and Tantric Śaivism, and those traditions were not uniformly nonviolent.
Meanwhile, the Kāpālika world—whose imagery overlaps considerably with Bhairava worship—was considerably more transgressive.
So medieval India could simultaneously contain:
Kāpālika/Bhairava traditions
→ cremation grounds, skulls, blood, transgression, and in some texts human sacrifice
and
Tamil devotional Śaivism
→ Śiva temples, hymns, devotion, service and grace
Yet both could regard Śiva/Bhairava as the supreme divine reality.
That's actually a very interesting example of the diversity within Śaivism.
The story doesn't merely say:
"Human sacrifice is okay because Śiva likes it."
Its ultimate message is almost the opposite:
The devotee must be willing to surrender everything—but the compassionate Śiva ultimately restores what was surrendered.
So the literal human sacrifice turns out to be a dramatic metaphor for total surrender.
That is also why I wouldn't use the Nāyanār story as evidence that medieval Tamil Śaivism practiced human sacrifice. It is evidence that human sacrifice was powerful enough as a religious symbol to be used in Śaiva devotional storytelling.
And the choice of Bhairava makes the connection to your earlier questions particularly striking: the Bhairava figure here represents the terrible demand that takes ordinary devotion beyond its limits, while Śiva's final revelation shows that the true object of the test was the devotee's attachment, not the child's life.
Någon har tagit en pisspaus på Carolina Rediviva. Allvarligt talat, jag är "pro-arkiv" så killen som gjorde det här borde hängas upp och ner någonstans. Offras?
More on Hinduism and human sacrifice. Source: ChatGPT.
Go one step deeper and give me 5–10 specific alleged cases from ancient and medieval India with dates, rulers/temples, original sources, and historical credibility.
Yes. I dug into this more carefully, and the picture is actually more interesting—and more uncertain—than the usual popular accounts suggest.
One correction to my previous answer is important: some famous claims about particular temples (especially Tanjore, Kalighat, and Danteshwari) are repeated endlessly in secondary literature, but when you trace them back, the evidence can become surprisingly thin. So below I distinguish documented practice, contemporary literary evidence, textual prescription, and later allegation/legend.
Location: North India / Vedic ritual culture
Date: roughly late 2nd–1st millennium BCE for the relevant Brāhmaṇa literature
Deity/ritual: the Puruṣamedha, "human sacrifice"
Primary sources: Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 13.6.2; Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa; Śrauta Sūtras
This is the most important ancient textual case. The ritual texts describe human beings being selected and assigned to sacrificial roles alongside animals and other victims.
But there is a crucial twist: the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa describes the human victims being released. Consequently, the strongest interpretation today is that the ritual had become symbolic rather than an actual killing.
There is a long-standing scholarly debate about whether the rite originated from an actual human sacrifice that was subsequently transformed into a harmless ritual. Older scholars such as Rajendralala Mitra argued for an originally genuine human sacrifice; modern scholarship is considerably more cautious.
Assessment:
🟢 Human sacrifice as a ritual concept: certain.
🟡 Actual human killing: unproven.
Date: probably 1st millennium BCE literary preservation
Source: Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 7.13–18; later versions in the Rāmāyaṇa
King Hariścandra promises Varuṇa that he will sacrifice his son. When the son refuses, Śunaḥśepa is purchased as a substitute victim.
He is taken to the sacrificial ground and bound to the sacrificial posts. He then recites hymns to the gods and is miraculously released.
This is not evidence that the historical event actually happened. But it is extremely valuable evidence for the conceptual world of Vedic religion: human beings could be conceived as sacrificial victims, and the narrative makes the rescue of the human victim the dramatic resolution.
In other words, it is evidence for the possibility and imagination of human sacrifice, rather than evidence for a particular historical killing.
Assessment:
🟢 Very strong evidence for the existence of human-sacrifice concepts.
🔴 Not evidence that Śunaḥśepa was historically sacrificed.
This is considerably more interesting because we have a datable Indian literary work depicting an apparently contemporary religious environment.
Date: c. 700–750 CE
Author: Bhavabhūti
Location: fictionalized Padmāvatī, but reflecting North Indian religious culture
Shrine: a terrifying goddess shrine associated with a Kāpālika ascetic
In Act V, the heroine Mālatī is abducted for sacrifice by the Kāpālika Aghoraghaṇṭa, who intends to offer her to Cāmuṇḍā/Karālā.
The Kāpālika cult depicted by Bhavabhūti is associated with cremation-ground imagery, skulls, blood and transgressive Śaiva practice. Bhavabhūti was writing in the 8th century, and the play is consequently an important early literary witness to the reputation and perceived practices of Kāpālikas.
But there's a major caveat:
It's a drama.
The villain is deliberately horrifying. We cannot simply take Bhavabhūti's plot as an ethnographic report saying "Kāpālikas regularly sacrificed people."
Nevertheless, it is significant that human sacrifice was sufficiently recognizable as a religious motif for Bhavabhūti to use it in this context.
Assessment:
🟡 Strong evidence that human sacrifice was associated with certain fierce Śākta/Śaiva cults in the cultural imagination of 8th-century India.
🟡 Possible reflection of real practice, but not proof of routine Kāpālika sacrifice.
This is probably my favorite medieval textual example, because it is more elaborate than Mālatīmādhava.
Date: c. 959 CE
Author: Somadeva Sūri, a Jain author
Text: Yaśastilaka
Location: fictional Rajapura
Deity: Candamārī, identified with Cāṇḍikā
Temple: a shrine called Mahābhairava
The story describes King Māradaṭṭa being persuaded to conduct a magical sacrifice in order to obtain a supernatural sword. The intended sacrifice involves animals and human beings.
The description is extraordinarily gruesome: human victims are brought to the temple and guarded alongside large numbers of animals awaiting slaughter.
What makes this particularly valuable is that Somadeva is not a Hindu propagandist. He was a Jain author presenting a dramatic critique of non-Jain religious practices.
K.K. Handiqui's study of the work explicitly notes that the Candamārī cult is presented as involving human sacrifice, while also cautioning that some of the description is fantastic.
Assessment:
🟡 Very good evidence that the idea/practice of human sacrifice to fierce goddesses was culturally plausible in 10th-century India.
🟡 Actual frequency remains uncertain.
This is probably the strongest textual evidence for explicitly sanctioned human sacrifice in medieval Hinduism.
Date: probably 10th–11th century
Region: Kāmarūpa/Assam
Text: Kālikā Purāṇa
Section: Rudhirādhyāya ("Chapter of Blood")
Deities: especially Kāmākhyā, Cāṇḍikā and Bhairava
The text doesn't merely mention human sacrifice. It gives a ritual framework in which a human victim can be offered.
The text is unusually specific about the victim, ritual eligibility and the circumstances under which the sacrifice is permissible. It even describes the victim as being ritually identified with the gods before being killed.
A contemporary scholarly discussion of Assam quotes the Rudhirādhyāya as prescribing the decapitation of a human victim and offering the head to the goddess.
However, there's an important qualification: the Kālikā Purāṇa is a prescriptive religious text, not a police report. It proves that a Hindu Śākta tradition could legitimize and ritualize the idea of human sacrifice; it doesn't by itself establish how often actual sacrifices occurred at Kāmākhyā.
Assessment:
🟢 Very strong evidence for a medieval Hindu textual tradition explicitly permitting human sacrifice.
🟡 Does not by itself prove routine sacrifices at the Kāmākhyā temple.
This is where things become especially difficult.
There are longstanding accounts that human sacrifice occurred among several groups in Assam, including the Koch, Kachari, Chutiya, Tripuri and Jaintia peoples. Edward Gait's historical discussion specifically connects some of these practices with the ritual system represented by the Kālikā Purāṇa.
The connection with Kāmākhyā is particularly plausible because the Kālikā Purāṇa explicitly identifies Kāmākhyā among the deities who can receive human victims.
But we should not leap from that to "the Kāmākhyā temple regularly sacrificed humans."
The evidence establishes:
Kāmākhyā-centered Śākta theology → human sacrifice was conceivable and ritually elaborated.
It does not establish:
Kāmākhyā temple → routine historical human sacrifice.
That's a much stronger claim and needs independent evidence.
Assessment:
🟢 Strong evidence for human-sacrifice traditions in historical Assam.
🟡 Specific claims about the Kāmākhyā temple itself are less secure.
This is one of the most famous stories—and one of the most problematic.
Location: Bastar, Chhattisgarh
Deity: Danteshwari
Alleged date: around 1830
Ruler: the Bastar raja
Alleged event: 25 men sacrificed at the goddess's shrine
You'll find the claim repeated in numerous books: a Bastar ruler supposedly offered 25 human victims to Danteshwari in approximately 1830.
But historian Radhika Singha has examined the colonial evidence surrounding the Danteshwari accusations and the broader politics of the British campaign against "human sacrifice." The archival record is considerably more complicated than the popular story suggests. British officials interpreted alleged sacrifice as a royal practice involving kidnappings and offerings to the king's tutelary goddess.
This is a textbook example of why I wouldn't simply reproduce the "25 men" claim as historical fact.
Assessment:
🟡 There is genuine historical evidence of colonial allegations and investigations concerning human sacrifice in Bastar.
🔴 The famous "25 men in 1830" story is not sufficiently secure to present as established fact.
This technically falls outside "ancient/medieval," but it's too important to omit because it is probably our best historical documentation of actual human sacrifice in India.
Region: Odisha
People: Kandha/Khond
Victim: Meriah
Purpose: especially fertility/agricultural prosperity
Period of documentation: 1830s onward
British officials collected extensive evidence concerning Meriah victims. The sacrifice appears to have been integrated into local political structures, with local rulers and chiefs sometimes involved and specialist networks supplying victims.
A recent scholarly study in Comparative Studies in Society and History notes that a 1837 colonial report already describes the sacrifice as organized through local political units and discusses the role of rajas, patras and the people who supplied victims.
But again, historians have become much more critical of the old colonial narrative. The British had strong political reasons for representing the practice as widespread and barbaric, and some victims may have been captives or bonded people rather than the stereotypical "purely religious volunteers" of older accounts.
Assessment:
🟢 Very strong evidence that actual ritual killing occurred.
🟡 Its scale, frequency and exact religious meaning remain debated.
There are two claims you will encounter constantly that I wouldn't put in the same evidentiary category.
This appears in later popular literature, sometimes attributed to Joseph Campbell. The claim is that children were sacrificed before a goddess at the great Chola temple.
I cannot find adequate primary evidence for it.
Verdict: 🔴 unsubstantiated.
It should not be repeated as an established fact simply because it appears in books about Hinduism.
As above, there is a real colonial record of allegations concerning Danteshwari and human sacrifice, but the specific dramatic number and date are not sufficiently secure.
Verdict: 🟡 alleged, not established.
The really interesting pattern is that the evidence becomes stronger if we move through four levels:
| Evidence | Example | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Myth/ritual text | Puruṣamedha | 🟢 certain as text |
| Religious prescription | Kālikā Purāṇa | 🟢 certain |
| Contemporary literary depiction | Mālatīmādhava, Yaśastilaka | 🟢 genuine historical evidence for the cultural phenomenon; 🟡 actual practice |
| Administrative/forensic documentation | Khond Meriah | 🟢 actual practice |
And there's an important chronological progression:
Vedic period
→ human sacrifice appears as a ritual concept, but is progressively symbolized/substituted
Early medieval period
→ literature depicts human sacrifice in fierce goddess and Kāpālika contexts
10th–11th century
→ the Kālikā Purāṇa provides an explicit ritual theology of human sacrifice
Later medieval/early modern period
→ reports of localized practices become more concrete, especially in Assam and eastern/central India
19th century
→ colonial authorities document and suppress actual practices such as Meriah
That is a much more defensible history than either "Hindus never practiced human sacrifice" or "human sacrifice was widespread throughout Hindu India."
And given our preceding discussion of Bhairava, Aghori and Tantra, there's one especially striking detail: the Yaśastilaka actually calls the Candamārī shrine Mahābhairava, while the Kālikā Purāṇa places human sacrifice within the same broad religious universe of Cāṇḍikā/Kālī/Bhairava worship.
That doesn't mean that Bhairava worship = human sacrifice—far from it—but it does show that the terrible/transgressive side of medieval Śaiva-Śākta religion wasn't merely a modern Western projection. Some of its most extreme ritual possibilities really are present in the Indian sources.
