Note 7 — Tale II.

Nothing can be much more revolting to our minds than the idea of human sacrifices. Nevertheless, one of the grandest episodes of the great epic poem called the Ramajana, is that in which King Ashokja goes all the world over in search of a youth possessing all the marks which prove him worthy to be sacrificed: “wandering through tracts of country and villages, through town and wilderness alike, holy hermitages also of high fame.” When at last he has found one in the person of Sunasepha, son of Ritschika, a great prince of seers, Visvamitra, the great model penitent, calls on his own son to take his place, crying up the honour of the thing in the most ardent language. “When a father desires to have sons,” he says to him, “it is in order that they may adorn the world with their virtue and be worthy of eternal fame. The opportunity for earning that fame has now come to thee.” And when his son refuses the exchange, he pronounces on him the following curse, “Henceforth shalt thou be for many years a wanderer and outcast, and despised like to a dealer in dog’s flesh.”