The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.313

v2.c17.s1.313

‘So much has been written about the horrors of this festival—of the hundreds of dead and dying pilgrims that strew the road, and of their bones that whiten the plains—and of the victims that throw themselves under the wheels of the car,—that I was most agreeably disappointed to find the pilgrims hurrying to the spot, talking and laughing like people going to a fair in England, which in fact it is. There were fanatics measuring the road with their length, and others rolling along, and devotees doing absurd things of all sorts, but not more than one sees in every town in India; and as for victims, none had been heard of for many years before that time. Many threw themselves down before the cars, it is true, but a kick or a slap from those who were standing by started them long before the wheels came near, amidst the laughter and shouts of derision of the people. Nor were the bones more plentiful than the victims. I looked out everywhere for a pilgrim’s skull to examine his bump of veneration, and keep it as curiosity if I found it large, but neither skulls nor bones were to be found anywhere that I could see. Still the authorities are so respectable, that it is but charitable to believe that a different state of things did once exist, and if the Missionaries and talkers of the India House have their own way, **[134]** probably will return; they have clamoured till they got the pilgrim-tax and Government interference done away with and the consequence was, that eight victims were sacrificed the very first year after the abolition; not willing victims, but, it is said, by a mistake, getting entangled among the wheels; probably forced there by the priests, that their god might again have a sacrifice’⁷⁷.