Murder and robbery were considered by Thugs as a religious duty and they considered themselves to be holy and honorable men. Such abhorrent behavior did not affect their moral feelings.
They followed the instructions and will of their goddess through their interpretation of a very complicated system of omens. They often traveled extensively to accomplish their goals of murdering a wayward traveler. The Thugs were a very close fraternity and used special jargon ramasi and hand signs to communicate with each other. Such secret communication methods allowed fellow Thugs to recognize each other in the furthest, most remote parts of India.
Thugs who were too old or infirm to perform the travel and ritual attacks on travelers, served as guides, spies, supply providers and more. Because of the closeness, secrecy and discipline of the Thug organization, they were rarely if ever, suspected of any wrongdoings.
They were recognized by many as normal law abiding citizens and went unmolested for centuries, free from suspicion or persecution by both Hindu and Muslim authorities. However, there were average persons, especially travelers, who were well aware of the dangers presented by the strange Thugs. We will never know the extent of the murderous activities of the Thugs. Estimated deaths by Thugs were as high as 40, a year.
Many believe that over 2 million people died at the hands of Thugs. Greatly aiding Thuggee success was the lack of any central authority powerful enough to put an end to Thug ritual murder.
The great Mughal Empire that ruled the Indian subcontinent for centuries had lost power and fragmented into many independent and semi autonomous kingdoms who collectively could not contend with the Thuggee threat. Summoning the publisher, Richard Bentley, to the palace, Queen Victoria demanded that page proofs be sent her immediately.
Bentley acquiesced and the first few chapters of what would later become known as Confessions of a Thug by Colonel Philip Meadows Taylor — a colonial officer stationed in Hyderabad at the time of the Thuggee killings — were dispatched. Naturally, given the sensational subject matter and the exotic cruelty, from the moment the book was published it became a bestseller, enthralling the British reading public within the first few lurid pages. In the reign of that sultan, some Thugs were taken in Delhi, and a man belonging to that fraternity was the means of about a thousand being captured.
But not one of these did the sultan have killed. He gave orders for them to be put into boats and to be conveyed into the lower country, to the neighborhood of Lakhnauti, where they were to be set free. The Thugs would thus have to dwell about Lakhnauti and would not trouble the neighborhood of Delhi any more.
Before several mentions of the Thugs had also been made in England. John Fryer wrote of their existence towards the end of the seventeenth century and in George Swinton, the Chief Secretary to the Government of India, sent seven severed heads to Edinburgh for forensic examination. It was thought the heads all belonged to Thug members and after extensive tests were carried out the examiners concluded that each of the skulls revealed remarkable characteristics usually seen only in criminals.
Fifty years ago, when I was a boy in the then remote and sparsely peopled Mississippi valley, vague tales and rumors of a mysterious body of professional murderers came wandering in from a country which was constructively as far from us as the constellations blinking in space — India; vague tales and rumors of a sect called Thugs, who waylaid travelers in lonely places and killed them for the contentment of a god whom they worshiped; tales which everybody liked to listen to and nobody believed, except with reservations.
This striking depiction of the goddess Kali clearly shows her famous necklace of skulls and girdle of severed arms, embellished here with a few recently-severed heads, but looking far more vigorous than the corpse-like creature often used to represent her. They had all been strangled.
Victorian England thirsted for tales of dark and terrible deeds — especially those committed in the far-flung reaches of Empire. In literature, stretching as far back as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and nearly every inclusion of an Oriental character made mention of their criminal and sexually aberrant nature.
Gradually my band arranged themselves around their new victims. All were at their places, and I eagerly looked out for the first scout who should give us intelligence that the bhil was ready. He remarked on my altered behavior, and I rallied myself, and was soon able to amuse him as I had done before. But at what point did fiction separate from fact? At its center sat the Hindu goddess Kali. Cemeteries, blood and skulls are all associated with her worship, while in paintings she is represented as a black woman with an azure face, often streaked with yellow.
In nearly all representations of Kali, her mouth is shown to be bleeding and her tongue is often poking out as if in some gesture of defiance. Despite all this gruesomeness however, in southern India and in Kashmiri tradition, Kali is not an evil deity, but a curious kind of life force. Indeed her law-abiding devotees as opposed to her murderous ones have built a vast amount of beautiful poetry around her, often depicting the goddess as a tender, loving mother.
To this end she has had temples built in her name, in particular in Kolkata, west Bengal, and in Kamakhya in Assam. Sleeman, reveals how it was that Kali became linked with the Thuggee to the extent that she did.
According to Thug legend, there was a time when the world was pestered by a terrible demon whose main aim was to devour mankind. As fast as children were born so the demon ate them. Kali tried to put a stop to this murder by killing the demon with a sword, but every time she struck it and blood was spilt, up sprang a new demon, [ …] until the hellish brood multiplied to such a degree that she realised the impossibility of completing her task unaided.
In this dilemma Bhowani [Kali] brushed the sweat from her arm and from it created two men, to each of whom she gave a strip of cloth, torn from the hem of her garment, and commanded them to strangle the demons, thus overcoming the blood difficulty. These legendary progenitors of Thuggee worked with such skill and vigor that soon all the demons were slain, and the goddess gave the ruhmal , or strip of cloth, as a reward for their assistance, bidding them transmit it to their posterity with the injunction to destroy all men who were not of their kindred.
James L. Fakirs were also off limits as were religious mendicants, goldsmiths, potters, dancers and musicians. Nevertheless, over a period of time, the Thugs slowly began to ignore these laws and soon any traveler, be they female or otherwise, was a potential Thug victim.
An unnamed artist created this image of Thugs in captivity in a prison in Aurungabad for the Illustrated Travels journal around By the nineteenth century, nearly 40, deaths were being recorded each year as a result of Thug activity, although by this time the religious significance of the slaughter had all but disappeared. Straightforward robbery was now the motive, clear-cut murder with the intention of stripping the victim of his or her valuables.
Many Thugs grew rich on their spoils and became influential citizens whose veneer of respectability deflected suspicion. To illustrate this, Sleeman Snr. Cheek, who employed a young Indian bearer to look after his children. Later however, it was discovered that this man was a Thug and that while he was an exemplary employee for eleven months of the year, during the twelfth he devoted his time to strangulation.
The Hindu deities, all million of them, are demons, masquerading as gods. How did the Sufi religion start? Demons revealed it to people, and provided the super-natural power.
Whirling Dirvishes are one branch of the Sufi religion. How do the Whirling Dirvishes twirl on the dance-floor for hours, without getting drunk-headed and falling down? The demons provide miracle power for the feat. The Dirvish goes into a Trance. The Bible is True.
How did the early Christians perform astounding miracles, divine healings, speaking in tongues, etc? He wants us to love righteousness not because we saw a miracle, but because we love righteousness and love.
A fallen angel demon, or satan revealed it to someone or a group of people. Jesus Christ was a demon. Why have most of the recent posts been sinking deeper and deeper into this religious quagmire? That, my pious friends, is not Damn Interesting. Read that again. Now, one more time. You might, for all I know. However, when it comes to facts, the word might should never come into play. Nobody cares. You want converts?
You want people to believe in what you believe? First, you have to be people with personalities. One-Demensional people are never interesting. If the only thing you ever have to say is a Bible verse, then go jump off a bridge.
Then, you have to be fantastic, amazing people. The kind of people other people want to be like. Then, and only then, can you talk about how great your personal set of beliefs are and how they made you into the amazing, fantastic person you are today.
Faith does not equal fact, ever. Was Jesus the son of God? The Bible certainly says so. Outside of the Bible, well…. The fact is that Jesus was a bastard and his mother was raped by the Holy Spirit. Now that, according to the Bible, is an absolute fact. Perhaps not the most flattering take on the savior of the christian faith, but a fact none the less. No matter what cards you hold in your hand, you win and everybody else loses. I read these posts by these religious people and I imagine a child with both hands over their ears, eyes closed and shouting gibberish at the top of their lungs.
One last fact: Religion has been the main cause of war throughout history. Think about how stupid that is. People killing people over their opinions. The point of this web-site is learning about and understanding Damn Interesting things. If necessary, summarize them. Your links are to entire books, which most people do not have the time nor the desire to read. I am not myself Muslim, but for the most part I find Islam no better or worse than Christianity: both have their good people who try to understand and make the world a better place, and their fundamentalists with blinders on who would kill to defend their particular understanding.
Considering that there are 1. Oh, and once more for the record: most Christians do believe in evolution and do not take the Bible literally on this point. If the science clearly shows something to be true, religion cannot make it otherwise. The 3 great proofs that the Bible is True: 1. Fulfilled Prophecy predictions of the future which , later came true. No other religion or person attempts to predict the future, the way the Bible does. The Great love described in the Bible. The changed lives of the believers.
If you believe the Bible, it will change your life. Many people and religions have predicted the future, with varying success. Vagueries are a great boon to people pretending to be prophets. Nostradamus is a case in point. Perhaps the most accurate predictions have come from the Mayans. No guess work involved. They accurately predicted all sorts of astronomical happenings. Many religions put great emphasis on loving your neighbor. Many non-religious people do likewise. What do you mean true?
True as in…. What exactly is true about it? Yes, there are some accurate historical accounts writen in the bible. Archeoligists have uncovered structures and locations that are more-or-less as biblical documents describe them. That part of the Bible is accurate because it can be verified. That is not to say that something has to be proven to be a fact gravity, for example, has existed since the begining of time , but the truth of these sections of the Bible can be proven…. However, as The Invisible Pink Unicorn, Pastafarianism and other parody religions clearly illustrate, faith is what you make of it.
As I said in the previous post, this is not a crack on religion. This is not an attack on people that belong to an -ism. This is an attack on the closed-mindedness that produces the kind of ridiculous statements that dennis has said.
Those of you who associate yourself with a religion, keep on keeping on. If you are seeking something that you think a religion can answer, my heart goes out to you and I hope you find what you are looking for.
A harsh metaphor, but an appropriate one. Look man, believe what you want, but call it what it is: a belief, an opinion. It simply means that I was endowded by my creator with certain inaliable rights such as free will, a thought process and the ability to make up my own mind. I have chosen to believe what I want, just as you have. If you are not interested in reading the texts I cited, then I cannot force you and you will remain ignorant of much violent Islamic history.
I may or may not read those texts — that is beside the point! It was only suggested reading on my part. I followed the link and I must say, it was a shallow and distorted response: among other things, it tries to pick apart that Islam is pluralist by noting religiously sanctioned restrictions on dhimmi Christians and Jews in Egypt.
Egypt is not the entire world of Islam, and even within Egypt there are many dissenting opinions. Islam is incredibly diverse which you can read in the book-quote at the link! Attacking all of Islam is also counter-productive: it strengthens the Islamic fundamentalists and weakens the position of the moderates, and points us in the direction of an un holy war. The real irony: if you look at the position of the Christian fundamentalists and the Islamic fundamentalists, they both use the same basic arguments: God is on our side, everything will be good once we win, so lets hate the other side and destroy them.
Real Christians never advocate that we should hate anyone. So, Fundamentalists are no worse than the Bible. And the Bible is True and Loving. Jesus loves with Intense love. And , He requires that all people love as He loves,…….. Are you trying to be a troll? Who is being ignorant? I object. By the time I am finished, this discussion will be long over. The same applies to Muslims. How would you feel if someone condemned Jesus as a demon?
Which, by the way, Muslims in general would never do. Answer to wh Thanks. I never said that Mohammed was a demon. Mohammed said that an angel from God Allah revealed the Koran religion to him. If Christianity and the Bible is True it is , then,………obviously the Koran is wrong. The Bible and the Koran contradict each other.
Why would a loving God order people to terrorize and murder others, to promote Love? Is this the way to keep a clean conscience before God? Obviously, Mohammed violated his conscience, but,…….
Mohammed was a murderer among other things. He robbed caravans. He forced Islam upon people by sword. And believe His original revelations,…… the Old testament and the New testament.
The New testament completely fulfilled the Old testament prophecies. I was under the impression you were denigrating Islam in favor of Christianity. In fact, in both books you cite, Christianity comes away about as badly as Islam. Lal draws parallels between feudalism in Christian Europe and Islamic India. In both cases, religion was abused to justify oppression. So: you were trying to make the point that thuggee is not contrary to Islam, because the Islamic rulers mughals, etc.
I would respond that, yes, thuggee ideology was consonant with some Islamic rulers of the time as was pointed out in the article too , but that those rulers were abusing religion and deliberately misinterpreting religious law or ignoring it to further their own ends — as was also the case with Christianity in Europe. Am I missing some other point you were trying to make? Sorry, got that wrong too.
Still, Muslims would be are very offended by the accusation that the angel that spoke to Mohammed was a demon. Since Muslims believe Jesus was also a Messenger of God, they believe that the two are mostly compatible. I have heard some Muslims propound the theory that the Bible has been replaced, or badly translated. From my own reading, I find little more contradiction between the Koran and the Bible than I find between the Bible and itself.
Most of the contradiction I find is in the interpretation, as opposed to the actual text. I think Muslims would disagree with your interpretation of the personal history of Mohammed. That some followers of Islam did these things, I would not contradict — but then some followers of Christ also, unfortunately, did these things see, e. That is a matter of some debate. A lot of the old prophecies are quite vague.
This is one of the major stumbling blocks for Jews accepting Jesus. I am of the opinion that the Second Coming of Christ is long past a bit over years , though the Kingdom is still in process. I hope that does not preclude us having civil debate about interesting topics.
The followers of Christ never murder,…………if a Christian murders, he automatically lost his Christian-hood salvation when he decided to murder. Christians follow Christ. By definition. So, the murdering Crusaders were not Christians. They might have been fake Christians. Which is in our future. We are allowed to reject Christ in this Age of Grace. They were fleshly, earthly minded. Christ was Spiritual, Heavenly minded.
But, a Few Jews did accept Jesus as the Christ. If the day ever comes, God forbid, that a global caliphate is imposed and sharia law rules our lives, dennis will have an advantage over you. On that day, dennis, as a Christian, will have three choices: conversion to Islam, enslavement or death. Unfortunately, you as a Godless atheist, as opposed to a Christian or Jew, will only be offered two: conversion to Islam or death.
See how much better it is to be a Christian or Jew under sharia law :. Enslavement implies working for another master, and that is not the case for dhimmi. I am most decidedly not atheist. Should I turn away from that which I believe to be true, because it may cause me pain or even death? So, one can understand your rejection of anything that might cast a negative light on Islam. It was not my intent to get into a religious debate.
I just wanted to let people know that Islam has a very violent past, one that is not discussed by our media or academia. One only has to look at a map and outline the current extent of Islam to see the extent of that violence with the exception of Indonesia. Whereas the Crusades were a belated military response to three centuries of Muslim aggression against Christian lands and peoples, and by comparison in scope of geography affected and violence, they in no way compare to the prior violence of Islam.
What happened to all the Jewish and Christian settlements in the Arabian peninsula? What happened to all the Buddhist and Hindu temples throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan? What happened to the Persian Zoroastrians?
What happened to the numerous Christian and Jewish settlements throughout northern Africa and Turkey? What happened to the Egyptian Christian Copts? The ideology of Islam has always been less a religion than a vehicle for Arab imperialism; and this continues today with the Saudis funding madrassas and mosques worldwide.
Your Persian ancestors were brutally subjugated and yet here you are, heatedly defending the ideology that enslaved them. Would it be possible to set up some sort of forums, so that people could discuss other subjects?
I am not of Persian extraction, or at least not recent — I did not mean to imply I was. I do have friends who have lost loved ones to the persecution in Iran, which makes me acutely aware of the implications of Islamic rule. Your argument against Islam is primarily based on how it has been abused for brutal imperialism and personal gain.
Christianity has also been abused for brutal imperialism see colonialism and personal gain. Do you renounce Christianity because of that? Because the truth is still the truth, no matter that others may have twisted it for their own ends. Christians are monkeys. Anti-Semitism hatred of the Jews has been an almost world-wide, phenomenon, since the Jewish nation was born, almost years ago.
Why do we hate the Jews so much? Anti-Semitism is always in the news. Except Dave Hunt, he gave the reason. Thank God for Dave. Why does satan hate the Jews? God Himself, in the Bible, said: The Scripture cannot be broken. Yet, satan is trying to do the impossible. But, God has protected them from complete annihilation. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God!
There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. I will not contradict that this is a hateful and dangerous Hadith. I find it extremely unfortunate that such a hateful Hadith is still being promulgated. This looks to me to contradict the Koran itself — how could one expect believers to treat Jews with respect, as is clearly stated in the Koran, after such a statement? A large and growing number of Muslims do not accept Hadith oral traditions , since they are of human origin, not directly the words of the Prophet as the Koran is.
Even among the majority of Muslims who accept Hadith, not all Hadith are equal: some are better substantiated than others. You need to drop the prejudices and accept that the world is not black and white. However, a literal interpretation of any religion is simply asinine.
How did Brachiosaurs fit on the ark? Where did Mohammed get a winged horse? Why is there no historical record of Jews in Egypt? I could go on and on and on. But compared to the Holy Roman Empire, these people are total amateurs. A classic example in Christianity is using the book of Leviticus to attack homosexuality, while ignoring the following passage which suggests that working on the Sabbath is a crime worthy of the death penalty.
Which is it? I would like to think that someday we, as a universal society, can move beyond the archaic absolutism of religious dogma. However, I doubt we will. Ironically, I can best explain this as a function of evolution- the same engine denied by fundamentals yet accepted by the current pope.
Check the birthrates for yourselves- the freethinkers are an endangered species, self-selected for extinction. Truly, the meek shall inherit this Earth.
The Earth has been befouled beyond repair anyway- you folks can have it! All I ask is that you keep away from my land until you are prepared for rational argument. Having read it myself I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Bible is anything but ethical, and those stuck defending it do so based on habit and conditioning, not objective, rational thinking.
Case in point: why was an article about Hindus and Moselms hijacked with a discussion regarding the alleged superiority of Christianity? Coincidentally, one of the seven deadly sins.
According to Hindu scriptures, the Hindu scripture describing caste rules was written by a guy named Manu not a god. I should point out that Manu only presented a formal social code about the rules of war, caste, marriage, and other issues facing hindus at the time.
Hindu society was divided in castes long before Manu came along, in reality caste was like an overgrown version of trade unions that restricted entry into a particular profession eg. The more prestigious the profession, the more prestigious the union members became, and its members became obsessed with keeping it an exclusive club. Eventually each union got its own idiosyncratic practices and customs.
At this point this unions became more like races in America rather than trade unions. This phase lasted for about years. Eventually the Muslims and British came along, Hindus borrowed from Abrahamic sensibilities, reformed the religion and the caste system was outlawed. However the decedents of the doctors, preists, and merchants are still more successful on average than the decedents of the toilet cleaners and laborers, and this inequality remains a great source of instability in the country.
Also as far as Kali is concerned, keep in mind that it is only one of the six schools of orthodox Hinduism and and there also many heterodox schools including Buddhism, Jainism etc. They all have very different practices and intensely disliked each other until very recently.
Then around years ago Hinduism was reformed by practitioners borrowing from Judeo-Christian influences using relativistic logic similar to present day post-modernism. The hetrodox schools are even more varied, example neo-Carvaka are extreme pleasure seeking atheist materialists.
Modern day Jains are the least violent religious sect on the planet. The Aghoris ritually eat dead people. I know it all too well. You see, there are only a few reasons one would continue to keep posting along these lines.
Usually, on this site, there are many highly intelligent people discussing varying topics in order to prove their point, theorem, or whatever else.
Why would someone keep posting on this site and never actually say anything? Why would someone continue to repeat themselves over and over and over again? You see, I grew up in the church. Every Sunday and Wednesday you could find me there, studying and discussing the Bible with my fellow Christians.
Shame on you. This is a method of converting non-believers by talking about the Bible, talking about your beliefs and showing people what it means to be a Christian. This, however, never works like that. Actually, it worked once with me when I was a church goer, but the man was homeless and begging for money. I, being 17 at the time, of course gave him some money in exchange for listening to my spiel about God and Jesus and all that.
This is the prey of these spiritual predators. These…Soul Merchants as I call them. I remember a parable in the Bible that used the scattering of seeds as a metaphor for witnessing. It goes on to discribe the seeds landing on fertile ground and some seeds landing in rocky crags.
This forum, for dennis, is the rocky crag. He is diversifying his spiritual bonds. He is trying to score points for the afterlife and nothing else. I can see the proud glow and sense of self-importance the groups encouragements have imbued him with.
You are despicable.
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