Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c10.19

c10.19

From the accounts given in the Bible of idolatries of Ahaz and several other of the Israelitic kings, it seems probable that the Gentoo religion had extended itself over most of the kingdoms between India and the Mediterranean; the Jews were continually running into it and made ‘carved and molten images’, worshipped in *Groves under green trees* and made their sons and daughters *pass through the fire* in the same manner as the Fakeers and Bramins do at present; in short the worship of fire seems to have been a principal part of the Jewish idolatry as it was then all over India and is now on the coast of Malabar. But whether the making of ‘their children pass through the fire’ was actually sacrificing them, or not, I can not determine; I think it was; but it is worth enquiry what the customs of the fire worshippers on the coast of Malabar are in that respect, and how far those customs extend, and whether there are yet any remains of them among the priests at Benares, as I think there must.