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ANCIENT RELIGION OF INDIA.
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Brahmana may be the earlier of the two, but not by any very great interval. Finally, the style, although more modern than that of the Veda, is ancient and obscure, and contains many words and phrases of Vaidik antiquity. Upon the whole, as a mere matter of conjecture, subject to reconsideration, I should be disposed to place the Aitareya Brahmana about six or seven centuries before the Christian era.
So far, therefore, it may be received as authority to a qualified extent for the primitive practices of the Hindus, and for including amongst them the sacrifice, on particular occasions, of human victims. Not that the practice ever prevailed to the extent to which it spread throngh most of the ancient nations, or partook in general of the same character. These, it has been asserted, were entirely of an expiatory nature, performed under an impression of fear, and intended to deprecate the anger of the Gods. Such were the sacrifices of the Druids, the Scythians, and the Phænicians; and such were the Thargelia of the Athenians, when a man and woman were annually put to death in order to expiate the sins of the public, and redeem them from any national calamity. They were not, however, restricted to this source, but were not unfrequently vindictive, as when prisoners taken in war were sacrificed, like the three hundred citizens of Perusia whom Augustus offered in one day to his deified uncle (Divo Julio); or as the Grecian navigators whom the barbarians of Tauris sacrificed to Artemis whenever cast upon their shores. They had their
