Stoo said:
I'm curious to know where the authours of the book got the name 'Cozur'. Never heard of that before and, to my knowledge, it has always been referred to as 'gur' or 'jaggery'.
A quick Google search didn't turn up anything useful on the word 'Cozur' either.
This site came up, though:
http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring99/belanger/Belanger.html
Stoo said:
One parallel between the consecrated sugar and the Blood of Kali is that the Thugs believed if a normal person were ever to swallow it, they would "become like them" for the rest of their life. The effect of eating the 'gur' was to make one immune from the pain & suffering of their victims (like we see in "Temple of Doom"). Disregarding form & taste, the only difference is that the Blood of Kali has a way out: being burned by fire!
The WEG Sourcebook paraphrased:
The Thuggee are either thieves and murders who preyed on travellers or merchants in the countryside; or they are protectors of pilgrims.
The Thuggee became over-zealous until by the late 1700s most people were afraid to travel by road. Later, the development of India's railway system also meant there were less travellers to attack, so pilgrims became a target. Once not even the faithful were safe from attack, the Thuggee became known as oathbreakers and murderers, and were soon despised by almost everyone.
The book records that the Thuggee were closely associated with Kali, and that they didn't originally attack pilgrims because the priests of Kali didn't want to earn their goddess the wrath of another deity. As the number of travellers diminished this consideration became secondary to providing Kali with ther blood she demanded.
The Thuggee then adopted their own secret language, Ramasi, to identify themselves to each other. They also began ambushing people near small towns and villages, taking them alive to a predetermined location where the ritual was performed.
Since discovery of the ritual location was a constant risk, the Thuggee leaders established severe punishments for those who betrayed the location of a temple. They also made joining the Thuggee extremely difficult.
To join the recruit had to be related to his sponsor, then initiated at a ceremony involving both Thuggee and Priests of Kali: ingesting the consecrated Cozur, or heart of Kali.
Punishment for betraying the Thuggee or Kali involved the ritual staking of the betrayer in the centre of a circle, who would then be crushed by an elephant sitting on them.
Between 1820-1850 when the British learned of the Thuggee attacks they took little interest in the matter, believing the assaults were committed by wild animals. After several army patrols disappeared and merchants began refusing to travel other than by railway, the army commanders found both royal and company officials demanding an explanation.
The British then effectively exterminated the Thuggee in a massive sweep.
First, they made it a crime punishable by hanging to support the Thuggee or to worship Kali. Temples were destroyed and followers of Kali were captured. Important priests were interrogated and publicly executed.
Second, the army forced the Thuggee who lived in the forests into open combat.
[In Pankot it is said that the army raided and destroyed an enormous Thuggee temple complex, killing over 300 priests and followers.]
The Thuggee and the Kali cult were broken within three years, becoming so fragmented that the groups effectively ceased to exist.
Kali is a strong and proficient warrior, but her weakness is her desire for human flesh. It is this craving that drives her into fits of destruction and rage. Shiva, her sonsort, exerts a calming influence over the goddess.
Bengal is Kali's strongest area of worship, though before the British broke the power of the Thuggee, she was worshipped all over India. Most of her followers tend to be from the low caste or are people who live outside India's major cities. When not forming temples in the countryside, worshippers of Kali can be found near cremation grounds.
Shiva is the Disintegration Principle, that which will in the end of all things lead to destruction. The important difference between Shiva and Kali, is that Shiva embodies the concept that through destruction will come new life. Kali, on the other hand, is the representation of the void at the end of time, often translated as annihilation or entropy.
Sankara, often called the corruptor, is the god of false teachings, and a cruel manipulator. He delights in starting major battles between other gods, or between different religions. Some even call him 'lord of the demons.'
Sankara has two powers that can effect humans. The first allows him to possess someone and to use the individual to make trouble or to disrupt an occurrence he doesn't want to happen. His second power is his ability to cause people to lose control of themselves, which usually lasts for no more than an hour.
Sankara's ultimate goal is to corrupt humanity from the tru path so that the world will fall into anarchy and be destroyed.
In the Vedic version of Hindu mythology the amount of favour gained by offering a blood sacrifice is dependent on what is offered.
"The offering of a horse gives the worshipper 10 years of favour. The offering of a cow gives the worshipper 15 years of favour. The offering of a man gives the worshipper 50 years of favour."
