国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Tibetans. The Tibetans practised human sacrifices, but for different motives from what
we have observed in the Satluj valley. Oaths at important treaties were emphasised by
human as well as animal sacrifices. New houses were inaugurated by immuring human
beings and a person was killed when a house was first inhabited.¹ Thus, at the village of
Poo, a lama had only recently beheaded his own father while asleep, to make the new
house he had built, properly habitable.

The Shar-rgan sacrifices as well as the human sacrifices in the Satluj valley and in
Lahul are of a very different character. To understand them, it is necessary to investi-
gate the character of the deities in whose honour they are celebrated. Śiva and Kāli, as
we find them in the Himālayas, are personifications of the creative powers; they do not
only produce the harvest of the fields, but also bless the women with children, especially
sons. In this respect, the principal deities of the pre-Buddhist religion of the Tibetans,
in particular Ke-sar and 'aBru-gu-ma, resemble Śiva and Kāli. For as I have shown
previously,² Ke-sar and 'aBru-gu-ma were both invoked by the people to grant children.
This explains the union which was formed between the Tibetan pre-Buddhist and the
aboriginal Śiva-Kāli religion, as we find it represented in the Shar-rgan hymnal. (The
word shar-rgan means "young and old".) But Ke-sar and 'aBru-gu-ma were not of the
fierce character of Śiva and Kāli. The latter were only ready to grant a blessing, when
a portion of what they had given, was returned to them. Hence not only a portion of
the harvest of the fields, or some of the lambs of the flock had to be returned to them in
sacrifice, but they also claimed some of the children with whom they had blessed the
village. Almost invariably the traditions speak of children who were sacrificed. Here
at Poo, the sacrifice had to be made on the occasion of a festival which is still now-a-days
recognised as a festival or thanksgiving for the blessing of offspring. In Lahul, the
prayer on the occasion of such sacrifices was apparently intended more as a thanksgiving
for a good harvest in the fields.

The old Shar-rgan place is exactly above the site of the ancient castle of Kalagtrung
and probably belonged to it. The new Shar-rgan place is situated a little above the road
from Poo to Rizhing. At the latter place, there are a few old pencil-cedars, and a number
of rough altars, furnished with horns of goats and wild antelopes, and pencil-cedar twigs.
They look exactly like the lha-tho of Ladakh. A third place which is connected with the
same festival is found in the middle of the village of Poo, and is called Dralang (sGra-
lang (?) 'raising the voice'). It is used for dancing and has a pole in the middle. On two
sides of the place, there are lha-tho like those on the new Shar-rgan place, and two per-
pendicular stones, one showing traces of an inscription seemingly Oṃ-a-huṃ. The
other plain one is probably a rude kind of liṅgam, like those in Manchad. Not far
from it, there are holes or pits where again children used to be sacrificed. (Plate
IX, b).

The people of Poo although they are Buddhists, do not always cremate their dead,
but bury them in certain cases. There are two burial places outside the village, one for