[Advaita-l] Purusamedha

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

What Lord Krishna said was a sattvic idea and in the spirit of Dharma but that does not mean there were no tamasic people in Bharatvarsha in the ancient past. The very fact that Jarashandha wanted to do human sacrifice points to the possibility of the existence of the practice of human sacrifice, although it was not sanctioned by dharama.
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya

--- On Mon, 9/21/09, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Purusamedha
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 5:19 PM


--- On Mon, 9/21/09, Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com> wrote:

[..]

> I am aware of the shatapatha brAhmaNa's description of the
> puruSha-medha.
> 
> 
> 
> And why will the question of forbidding something come if
> it was never practiced
> before?
> 

This is not a legitimate argument - the prohibition can certainly exist to remove any possible doubt that humans are the victims of the sacrifice.

[..]

> Rituals evolve overtime and some people are only suggesting
> the possibility of
> human sacrifice in a remote past. Like for example in
> ancient times during the
> upanayana for an
> atharvavedin , tongues of a few birds were used, which in
> later times were
> replaced by feathers of those same birds.
> 

How ancient do we have to go to find the kind of historical evidence you're talking about - perhaps the Mahabharata times?

In the Mahabharata, king Jarasandha wishes to sacrifice to Shiva the enemy kings that he has defeated and held captive. Along with Arjuna and Bhima, Krishna arrives at Jarasandha's kingdom and says:

  manuShyANA.n samAlambho na cha dR^iShTaH kadA chana . 
  sa kathaM mAnuShairdeva.n yaShTumichchhasi sha~Nkaram .. 10..\\

  "The sacrifice of men is not seen anywhere.
  How then do you wish to sacrifice men to Sankara?"


  savarNo hi savarNAnAM pashusa~nj~nA.n kariShyati . 
  ko.anya eva.n yathA hi tva.n jarAsandha vR^ithA matiH .. 11..\\

  "Those of your own caste you are turning into animals (pashuH).
  How can there be a lower intelligence than you, Jarasandha?"


Apparently, there were indeed idiots like Jarasandha who must've interpreted the Vedas in a "novel" manner. But even the Smriti disagrees with such practices.

In case you do not know how the story goes - Bhima kills Jarasandha in a gruesome manner and frees the captive kings.

Regards,
Kartik


      
_______________________________________________
Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita

To unsubscribe or change your options:
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l

For assistance, contact:
listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org