48 HISTORY OF INDIA. [Book IV.
A.D. — now begins. A devotee coming forward prostrates himself and is immediately fastened to the hooks, which for this purpose are run through the fleshy parts of
Hook- his back near the shoulders. The end of the other rope is then seized by a ° '^ number of persons, who commence running round with it at a rapid pace. This motion is of course communicated at once to the hooks, and the wretched devotee lifted up into the air is swung round in agony Were the flesh to give way, the force with which he is whirled as well as the height would project him like a shot from a gun, and his death would be inevitable. The devotee by giving a signal may be relieved from peril and torture, but he is in no haste to give it, and usually remains suspended from ten minutes to half an hour, for, strange to say! this is a religious service, the merit of which is proportioned to the length of time the agony is endured. The moment he descends and is taken off" the hooks, another steps forward to take his place, and the machine is kept wheeling till the day is far spent. In estimating the aggregate amount of suffering inflicted, it is necessary to remember that these horrid swings are not confined to the suburbs of Calcutta, where Kali's temple stands, but that in thousands of towns and villages throughout Bengal, they are in simultaneous operation, torturing the infatuated devotees, while multitudes of spectators stand around gaping with applause and wonder.
Other When the swino-incj terminates, another equally cruel and more murderous
barbarities. o O l ^
exhibition succeeds. A number of spikes or knives, with their points sloping outwards, are made to protrude from a large straw bag or mattress, and placed in front of a wall or scaffolding from twenty to thirty feet in height. The performance of the devotees is to leap from the scaffolding to the mattress. As the spikes are left somewhat loose, and there is room for the exercise of dexterity in taking the leap, the greater part escape uninjured, but several .sustain serious injuries, and a few are killed on the spot. For the last, the spec- tators feel no pity, because the belief is that the fate which they have met is the punishment of some enormous crime, which they must have committed either • in the present or in some former life. At night the devotees, seated in the open air, make an incision in the skin of their forehead as a receptacle for an iron wire to which they suspend a lamp. These lamps are kept burning till dawn, the wearers meanwhile celebrating the praises of their favourite dignity. It were easy to produce a long list of other self - inflicted tortures — of deluded wretches with their arms and breasts stuck full of pins — of others bound in a sitting posture to the rim of an enormous wheel, every revolution of which must reverse the natural position of head and heels — and of others, who, placing some mustard seeds on some mud with which thej^ have covered the under lip, stretch themselves out on their back.s, under a vow that they will lie there night and day, without change of position, till the seed shall germinate ; but enough has been already said to show by what kind of works the favour of Hindoo deities can be courted.
