Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833) was a Scottish soldier-diplomat who later served as Governor of Bombay and helped extend East India Company authority across western and central India. He was in Pune in late 1799, when relations between the East India Company and Peshwa Baji Rao II were politically sensitive. Like several contemporary colonial officials, he treated knowledge of local religious life and social hierarchy as essential to political intelligence and imperial administration.
His essay records what Pune’s literate Brahmin informants reported to a foreign visitor, rather than the varied practices of the wider population. He introduced the subject by noting that he had often heard the community accused of the practice, and recorded the account supplied by a Brahmin informant who claimed that such sacrifices had formerly taken place in Pune during the Dasara festival. Malcolm was unable to attend the festivities in person. As he noted in his essay, his description relied primarily on information from local Brahmin informants, whom he regarded as authoritative sources on ritual procedure. Malcolm described Navratra as a period of devotional fasting and penance dedicated to Goddess Bhawani in her manifestation as Goddess Durga. The tenth day, he wrote, commemorated Ram’s triumph over Ravan, although some devotees considered all ten days sacred to the Goddess. Daily observances followed at home and in temples. Malcolm recorded the veneration of young prepubescent girls, aged two to nine years, on successive days. The articles presented to them included combs, sweet oil, mirrors, glass ornaments, turmeric, safflower, henna, and eye salves. On particular days, these gifts included fruit and sweet cakes, accompanied by sandalwood paste and perfumed oils. Food was among the offerings made during Navratra, although Malcolm does not specify how the sweet cakes were prepared or whether they followed fasting rules. Many consumed only water during the nine days. Strict dietary vows during Navratra could prohibit ordinary cultivated cereals, pulses, common sea salt, onions, and garlic. Foods permitted during these fasts included uncultivated grains, amaranth, tubers, fruits, jaggery, and milk products. Malcolm’s essay also recounted a grave allegation concerning a Brahmin community and human sacrifice. The sacrifice was described as an offering to the sect’s tutelary goddess, whom the informant portrayed as delighting in human blood. Malcolm noted the accusation, but had no independent means of verifying whether such rites ever occurred. In the political culture of the Maratha state, Dasara traditionally marked the resumption of military campaigns after the monsoon rains, when movement and military operations were more difficult. On that day, worship extended to the objects of the court and the military, including royal regalia, horses, elephants, swords, bows, matchlocks, and artillery. The day’s ceremonies involved the Peshwa’s public procession. Malcolm documented the public sacrifice of the buffalo, a rite symbolising the goddess’s destruction of the buffalo-demon Mahishasura. In smaller provincial towns and villages, Malcolm noted that this sacrifice was integrated into territorial purification rites. The buffalo was paraded around the perimeter of the settlement while participants scattered grain and liquor along the boundary route. Upon returning to the starting point, the animal was decapitated. The liquor and grain offerings placated local boundary deities and spirits, while the slaughter of the buffalo reaffirmed communal security and sovereign authority over the cultivated landscape. Malcolm wrote that the Peshwa’s chiefs often gave soldiers money to purchase sheep for sacrifice. The animals’ blood was sprinkled on the horses with great ceremony, and the flesh of the sheep was distributed among all ranks except Brahmins. The meal that followed the sacrifice was regarded by many as one of the most essential ceremonies of Dasara.
In an account written in Pune on November 24, 1799, Malcolm described the observances of Navratra and Dasara during the late Peshwa period.
Published in 1823 in the third volume of the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, the essay, titled “On the Institution and Ceremonies of the Hindoo Festival of the Dusrah, with a Short Account of the Kurradee Brahmins”, discusses the rituals, offerings to the goddess, fasting practices, and military ceremonies associated with the festival. The rituals began with the establishment of the sacred pot, or “ghata”. Malcolm also noted the installation of Goddess Chandika beneath a tulsi bush, the worship of Goddess Saraswati on the seventh day, and the immersion of the “ghata” at the close of the ninth day. The victims were young Brahmins, and the practice had been discontinued during the rule of Balaji Baji Rao, or Nanasaheb Peshwa, according to the informant. The alleged victim was deceived through an invitation to a feast on the evening of the tenth day of Dasara, where an intoxicating substance was said to have been mixed into his food before the sacrifice. Malcolm described an assembly at the “shami” tree outside Pune, where people collected and exchanged “shami” and “apta” leaves as tokens of gold. This ritual, known as “simollanghan”, symbolised the crossing of a territorial boundary.
Salvos of artillery and musketry were fired before the assembly surged into adjoining fields to plunder standing stalks of jowar and bajra. Decorated with floral garlands and marked with vermilion, the animal was led directly before the horse or elephant of the prince or regional chief, where its head was severed with a single stroke by an experienced swordsman.
The Dasara rituals were thus part of the political and military life of the late Maratha state. its chiefs funded sacrificial rites that differed from the dietary practices of the court Although the Peshwa’s government followed orthodox Brahminical practices. The Peshwai recognised that military mobilisation depended on sanctioning ancestral sacrificial traditions. Sacrificial meals and dietary boundaries became part of the political negotiations through which an orthodox court accommodated the practices of a diverse martial population. Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at [email protected]
