children in india—story of the mahabharata—female child despised—a hundred cows the price of a son—records left by historians of alexander’s conquest—attempts by british government to check infanticide—work of jonathan duncan and col. alexander walker.
in an examination of the attitude of early man toward the child, there could be no more illuminating study than that of the habits of our own ancestry, the so-called aryan primitives.
whether the cradle of the race was in india and spread from there throughout europe, or whether the original habitat was central europe, the fact remains that the earliest records of the civilization of all of the races from the indians and aryans in asia to the celts, teutons, hellenes, goths, and italians indicate that they were a pastoral rather than an agricultural people and that while the family was the unit, the father was undoubtedly the supreme power that later marked the pater familias in rome.
the mere absence of fish-hooks in the arch?ological remains and the fact that the aryans121 were for a long time a fish-hating race (the word fish-eater used as a term of opprobrium by herodotus, there being no mention of eating fish in the vedas and only occasionally in homer) go to show how limited was the food of that race. it is only as the various branches of the race developed that they came to know the art of fishing and the value of fish, a fact that is shown in the lack of a common name for fish in the aryan tongues. the age of homer was really the beginning of the iron age of the aryan people, the culture of italy and hellas resulting from a “lengthened process of historical evolution” stimulated and developed by contact with the high culture of the semites, which again was derived from the proto-babylonian people.165
up to this time in the struggle for existence of these semi-savages everything was sacrificed for war, and infanticide and human sacrifice were practised, there being reason to believe that even cannibalism was practised in britain, if not by the celts certainly by the iberians.
early greek myths reveal a condition of society little different from that which the missionaries in recent years have found at dahomey. children were killed when they were not wanted; wives were bought and sold. the practice of breaking a bottle over the bow of a vessel is a survival of a savage practice of the vikings of binding a human being to the prow when the war galley was122 launched in order that the keel might be sprinkled with sacrificial blood.
recent philological research corrected by arch?ological discovery has established the fact that the members of the aryan race up to the time of the homeric legends were nomad herdsmen who had domesticated the dog and wandered over the plains of europe in wagons drawn by oxen. they knew how to fashion canoes out of the trunks of trees but with the exception of native copper they were ignorant of metals. it is extremely doubtful if they practised any agriculture. they collected and pounded in stone mortars the seed of some wild cereal, either spelt or barley. they recognized the association of marriage but they were polygamous. they practised human sacrifice and they retained after birth only those children that they could conveniently rear, or those male children who were regarded as necessary for the increase of the fighting forces of the tribe.
upon the dasyas, the dark-skinned, flat-nosed people who originally inhabited india, the aryans triumphantly descended, eventually driving the dasyas out of their lands. from the rig vedas we learn the nature of the aryan conqueror. he was a warrior, but he was a prayerful warrior who prayed for health, a defensive armour, and a comfortable dwelling. there were frequent sacrifices to the gods and at all of the sacrifices interesting philosophical and sphagiological discussions took place. in his prayers he prayed for racy 123and healthy children, but he always prayed for boys and never for girls. his children were part of his scheme of wealth; they were his body and soul.166
florida women sacrificing their first-born children
(from an old print)
the two great epics, the mahabharata and the ramayana, are the two sources of information on this period. written down when the art of writing became known about the year 800 b. c., these books mirror the life of the people for centuries further back. the attitude toward children can only be gleaned from such statements as that bhishma, one of the heroes of the mahabharata, was the eighth son of his father, and the first to be allowed to live. the deaths of the previous seven are explained on the ground that his father shantanu, the king of hastinapur, was married to ganga, the river goddess, who had consented to be the wife of the king on condition that, no matter what he might see her do, he would ask no questions. when she, however, having drowned the seven, attempted to drown the eighth son, he was obliged to cry “enough,” thereby saving the son but losing his wife, who departed declaring that the previous seven sons had been seven of the deities, condemned to a fresh life for some venial sin, and had been released by her from their punishment by an early death.
with such a story recited as semi-religious doctrine it can easily be seen why there grew up early the feeling that there was no crime in taking the124 lives of those children who were regarded as unnecessary.
bhishma takes a vow not to marry, in accordance with which he refuses the offer of amva who revenges herself when she is born a second time, as chikandini, the daughter of a great king. the epic opens up another view of the early aryan attitude when it is stated that chikandini, although a daughter, is allowed to live; but in order to accomplish this her mother hides her sex for twenty-one years.167
in the sankhayana-grihya-sutra there is a long description of the ceremony of the pumsavana (the ceremony to secure the birth of a male child) which with its earnest prayer for a male child, not only at the time of coition but again with much ceremony in the third month, shows that the female child was doomed to a most unwelcome reception at the very best. as we shall see later, these ceremonies were bound to produce, in the course of time, not only the practice of killing female infants without remorse but even the disgusting ceremonies that marked female infanticide in some places.168
the feeling of these people at all times about women is best expressed in the words of the ordinance of manu: “women are born to bear children.”169 the female child that escaped death had125 therefore a sharply defined life before it. it is a question, as professor gottheil suggests, as to whether it is a degeneracy that brings about the death of these infants in view of the life they would be obliged to lead. girls were betrothed at three or four years of age and at seven had gone through the ceremony of marriage to boys of whom they knew nothing, and when those boys died they remained virgin widows. at one time it was possible for them to be taken to their boy husbands’ homes and in some instances they became mothers before they were eleven. not until march 19, 1891, was a law passed in india prohibiting cohabitation before twelve.170
vatsyayana, an ancient hindu sage, author of the kama-sutra, in which are given rules for the domestic life of the hindus, mirrors the point of view of his time, about the first century, a. d. according to vatsyayana parents were to show to their children all indulgence and freedom—until they were five. from five to sixteen they were to be instructed in the fourteen sciences and sixty-four arts, after which time the lord of creation was enjoined to become a householder.171
of this early period there is plenty of evidence of human sacrifice which, even when it did not consist entirely of children, led to the slaughter of children. “there is no evidence,” as professor wilson says, “that the practice ever prevailed to126 the extent to which it spread through most of the ancient nations, or partook in general of the same character. they were in the main sacrifices of an expiatory nature performed in fear and intended to deprecate the anger of the gods.”172
monier-williams suggests that it is possible that human sacrifice was at one time part of the brahmanical system and adduces the story of hariskandra and sunahsepa as an evidence of that practice.173 in this legend, hariskandra, being childless, prays to varuna to grant him a son, vowing to sacrifice him to the god. a son is born but the father does not keep his word, and when the son reaches the age of discretion he refuses to become a victim. from a starving brahman he purchases a son for one hundred cows, but this victim escapes by being adopted by the priest visvamitra who is a royal sage.174
in the purushamedha, or the section of the satapatha-brahmana dealing with the human sacrifice, a large number of men and women are bound to eleven sacrificial posts, and after the necessary rites have been performed on them, they are set free and eleven animals are killed instead. that in times previous to this adoption human beings had been sacrificed, there is no doubt.
despite all that can be said in favour of the buddhistic religion and the reforms that it wrought,127 it is not possible to find that it made any change in the attitude of the hindus toward their children or the practices of the day as did the religion of christ and later the religion of mohammed, one of which sanctified the child, while the other expressly forbade infanticide. laying down the law that life was a period of suffering and humility, the buddhistic religion still declared that nirwana was not obtainable by those under seven, so that the life of the child did not take on any increased value under the new religion of gautama.
it was natural that with no forceful check on infanticide contained in the new religion, the primitive idea so well planted should spread and become stronger rather than diminish. it is therefore not surprising that in the manava-dharma-castra ascribed by burnell175 to the period between the year 1 a. d. to the year 500, the daughter is placed very low in the scale of things human:
“184—children, old people, the poor and sick, are to be known [to be] lords of the sky; an elder brother is equal to a father; a wife and son are one’s own body.
“185—and one’s own servants are one’s own shadow; a daughter is the chief miserable object. therefore offended by these, one should always bear it without heat.”176
that infanticide was so common in the time of alexander that it attracted the attention even of128 that greek in his march of conquest through the country, is evident in the records that he brought back.
q. curtius rufus relates,177 that on entering the kingdom of sophytes, alexander was astonished at the wisdom of the laws of this barbarian. according to curtius and diodorus, sophytes was governor of a territory west of the hyphasis while according to arrian it lay along the banks of the hydaspes.
“here,” says curtius, “they do not acknowledge and rear children according to the will of the parents, but as the officers entrusted with the medical inspection of infants may direct, for if they have remarked anything deformed or defective in the limbs of a child they order it to be killed. in contracting marriages they do not seek an alliance with high birth, but make their choice by the looks, for beauty in the children is a quality highly appreciated.”178
“these,” said diodorus siculus, “were governed by laws in the highest degree salutary, for while in other respects their political system was one to admire, beauty was held among them in the highest estimation. for this reason a discrimination between the children born to them is made at the stage of infancy, when those that are perfect in their limbs and features, and have constitutions which promise a combination of strength and beauty, are allowed to be reared, while those that129 have any bodily defect are condemned to be destroyed as not worth rearing. they make their marriages also in accordance with this principle, for in selecting a bride they care nothing whether she has a dowry and a handsome fortune besides, but look only to her beauty and other advantages of the outward person.”179
“a very singular usage,” says strabo, “is related of the high estimation in which the inhabitants of cathaie hold the quality of beauty, which they extend to horses and dogs. according to onesicritus, they elect the handsomest person as king. the child [selected], two months after birth, undergoes a public inspection, and is examined. they determine whether it has the amount of beauty required by law, and whether it is worthy to be permitted to live. the presiding magistrate then pronounces whether it is to be allowed to live, or whether it is to be put to death.”180
as far as i have been able to discover, the first attempt made by the british government and perhaps the first organized effort in the eastern world to put an end to the murder of female children was in 1789 when the british resident officer of benares, jonathan duncan, afterwards governor of bombay, authenticated from the confessions of a race called the rajekoomars the existence of the custom. sir john shore, afterwards a witness in the trial of warren hastings, and later lord130 teignmouth, in an address to the royal society of bengal in 1794 described how, after many suggestions, it was decided that the only way that the rajekoomars could be moved was by getting them to sign an “engagement” binding them to desist “in future from the barbarous practice of causing the death of their female children.”
inasmuch as that engagement was the beginning of the work in india and was afterwards used as a model for other engagements and reveals a curious attitude of mind on both sides, i reprint it in full:
“whereas it hath become known to the government of the honourable english east india company, that we, the tribe of rajekoomars, do not suffer our female children to live; and whereas this is a great crime, as mentioned in the brehma bywant pooran, where it is said that killing even a fetus is as criminal as killing a brahman, and that for killing a female, or woman, the punishment is to suffer in the nerk, or hell, called kat shootul, for as many years as there are hairs on that female’s body, and that afterwards that person shall be born again, and successively become a leper and be afflicted with the jukhima; and whereas the british government in india, whose subjects we are, have an utter detestation of such murderous practices, and we do ourselves acknowledge, that although customary among us they are highly sinful, we do therefore hereby agree not to commit any longer such detestable acts; and any among us (which god forbid) who shall be here131after guilty thereof, or shall not bring up and get our daughters married to the best of our abilities among those of our caste, shall be expelled from our tribe, and shall neither eat, nor keep society, with us, besides suffering hereafter the punishments denounced in the above pooran and shafter. we have therefore entered into this agreement.
“dated the 17th of december, 1789.”181
on may 27, 1805, colonel alexander walker, the resident at baroda, called the attention of the government at bombay to the conditions in guzerat, and the government authorized him to go ahead and use such measures as he deemed wise to suppress infanticide, sending him a copy of the engagement of duncan as a suggestion of lines that might be profitably employed.182
it was while in the course of his investigations and work in suppressing the practice that colonel walker heard first from the hindus the supposedly divine origin of the practice of putting female children to death. it was the supposedly divine origin and the fact that they acted within the observance of their religious duties that gave protection against interference from civil authorities. the jharejas, a tribe among whom walker made his investigations, informed him that the origin of132 the practice of infanticide came about through the fact that a powerful raja of their caste, who had a daughter of singular beauty and accomplishments, desired his rajgor or family brahmin to affiance her to a prince of desert and rank equal to her own.183
the rajgor, after much travelling, returned to the raja and informed him that he was not able to find any one to meet the proper requirements. the raja was so dejected over this that, according to the story, he finally consented to the rajgor’s putting his daughter to death as the only means out of the difficulty; and from that time on, according to the jharejas, female infanticide was practised throughout the land.184
there is much frankness in this explanation inasmuch as it was the difficulty of marrying their daughters in a way they considered properly that encouraged the practice. there is no doubt there had been a persistent warfare in the formative periods of the tribes, and when the warlike conditions made it impossible to marry the daughters advantageously, the daughters become a burden with the result that the practice of infanticide sprang up.
“the practice which prevailed in europe,” says colonel walker, “and chiefly amongst the princi133pal families, of placing their daughters in nunneries, might be traced to the same motives that led the jharejas to put theirs to death; and both have originated in the desire of diminishing the cares and expense attending a numerous family.”185
that the practice, no matter how deeply rooted in the tribe, still leaves the decision with the father, is shown from the following explanation of putting the child to death:
“when the wives of the jhareja are delivered of daughters, the women who may be with the mother repair to the oldest man in the house; this person desires them to go to him who is the father of the infant, and do as he directs. on this the women go to the father, who desires them to do as is customary, and so to inform the mother. the women then repair to the mother, and tell her to act in conformity to their usages. the mother next puts opium on the nipple of her breast, which the child, inhaling with its milk, dies. the above is one custom, and the following is another: when the child is born, they place the navel string on its mouth, when it expires.”186
we are further informed that “if a father wishes to preserve a daughter, he previously apprises his wife and family, and his commands are obeyed;134 if a mother entertains the wish of preserving a daughter, and her husband is averse to it, the infant must be put to death.”187
the heads of the tribes were consulted. many of them declared that the women and children were well treated and pointed out the fact that the hindu religion has always protected the female sex from violence and that it was unlawful to put a woman to death for any offence whatsoever. in support of this they quote the following sloke verse, which is extracted from the dhurma shastra:
“shut gao vudhet veepra;
shut veepra vudhet streeya;
shut streeya vudhet bala;
shut bala vudhet mroosha.”
“to kill 100 cows is equal to killing a brahmin;
to kill 100 brahmins is equal to killing a woman;
to kill 100 women is equal to killing a child;
to kill 100 children is equal to telling an untruth.”188
walker also came across a tribe of brahmins called kurada. their object of worship was a goddess known as makalukshmee to whom human sacrifice was acceptable. another name for their deity was vishara bhoot, a spirit of poison, a very135 amiable ghost inasmuch as it led to the poisoning of guests as sacrifices for this queen of another world.
among these people the following story was told as giving the origin of the sacrifices of human beings:
“a certain raja, having built a spacious and beautiful tank, found every effort to fill it with water impracticable.
“this greatly distressed the raja, and having in vain exerted every expedient of devotion and labour the raja at last vowed to his particular deity the sacrifice of his own child, provided this precious offering was accepted by the grant of his prayer.
“accordingly the raja directed one of his children to be placed in the centre of the tank, on which the deity instantly gave an undeniable testimony of his assent and gratification; the tank immediately filled with fine water, and the child was sacrificed in being drowned.”189
the records of the correspondence and the engagements for the next eighty years make interesting reading, especially the communications from the various princes protesting that inasmuch as they had killed their daughters for 4900 years it was an unfriendly act for the british government to interfere with the practice or insist on discussing it. showing their humanity and their136 right to be protected from interference in the matter of female infanticide, the futteh mahommed jemadar, writing to colonel walker, protests that already “in this country, neither birds nor animals are killed, goats excepted, and but few even eat them; and charitable places for fakirs going and coming from mecca, and hindus performing pilgrimages, are so strongly planted that they suffer no annoyance.”190
in an interesting batch of correspondence, 1835, between the british political agent, j. p. willoughby, at kattywar and various jhallas, rawuls, gohuls, and surwyejas of this section of india, these sub-chiefs reply to the half-cajoling, half-commanding communications of the political agent that they will do their best to see that infanticide is stopped, plaintively informing the representatives of the british government that in addition they will promise to bring up their own daughters. “five months since,” says the jhareja dosajee, chief of paal, appealingly, “my brother, jhareja hurreebhyee, got a daughter, which he preserved. this i wrote for your information.”
in the brief time since 1835 there is evident the great change that has come over the spirit of the once proud sons of the east. the iron of the west has left its mark.
137
the infanticide act, no. 366 a, 14th of march 1871, organized and equalized the work and showed that the government was indeed resolved “to use every means in its power to eradicate the inhuman practice that any relaxation of the repressive measures now to be enforced will depend on the evidence that may be given of a disposition to reform.” copies of the proclamation were affixed in conspicuous places at each tehseelee, police station, and village chopal in the proclaimed localities and with the employment of the registrar of midwives, the imposition of extra police under certain circumstances, and the fact that midwife and chowkidar were both obliged to report where the proportion of the girls to the child population falls below twenty-five per cent.,191 an effectual check was put on the practice of several thousand years.
