Strabo correctly observes, on the authority of Megasthenes, that suicide is not one of the dogmas of Indian philosophy; indeed, it is attended by many spiritual penalties:* and even penance which en­dangers life is prohibited.* There is a kind of exception, however, in favour of suicide by fire and water,* but then only when age, or in­firmity, makes life grievous and burdensome. The former has of late years gone quite out of fashion, but it is evident that in ancient times there were many devotees ready to sacrifice themselves in that mode.

Quique suas struxere pyras, vivique calentes
Conscendêre rogos. Proh! quanta est gloria genti
Injecisse manum fatis, vitâque repletos
Quod superest, donasse Diis.———

Pharsalia, iii. 240.

It was, therefore, a habit sufficiently common amongst the Indians of that early period, to make Lucan remark upon it as a peculiar glory of that nation. All this, however, may have occurred with­out any reference to fire as an object of worship; but the speech of Jaipál, if not attributed to him merely through Muhammadan ignorance, shows an unquestionable devotion to that worship.

But to continue, Istakhrí, writing a century earlier than this transaction, says, “Some parts of Hind and Sind belong to Gabrs, but a greater portion to Kafirs and idolaters; a minute description of these places would, therefore, be unnecessary and unprofitable.”* Here, evidently, the fire-worshippers are alluded to as a distinct class; and these statements, written at different periods respecting the religious creeds of the Indians, seem calculated to impart a further degree of credibility to the specific assertions of Sharafu-d dín, Khondamír, and the other historians of Tímúr's expedition to India. But the people alluded to by them need not have been colonies of refugees, fleeing from Muhammadan bigotry and per­secution. There are other modes of accounting for their existence in these parts. They may have been Indian converts to the doctrine of Zoroaster, for we read that not only had he secret communication with the Bráhmans of India,* but when his religion was fully established, he endeavoured to gain proselytes in India, and succeeded in converting a learned Bráhman, called Tchengri-ghatchah by Anquetil du Perron,* who returned to his native country with a great number of priests. Firdúsí tells us that Isfandiyár* induced the monarch of India to renounce idolatry and adopt fire-worship, insomuch that not a Bráhman remained in the idol-temples. A few centuries afterwards, we have indisputable testimony to the general spread of these doctrines in Kábul and the Panjáb. The emblems of the Mithraic* worship so predominate on the coins of the Kanerkis, as to leave no doubt upon the mind that it was the state-religion of that dynasty.*

Ritter entertains the supposition, that as the Khiljí family came from the highlands which afforded a shelter to this persecuted race, they may have had a leaning to these doctrines, and he offers a suggestion, that the new religion which 'Aláu-d dín wished to pro­mulgate may have been that of Zoroaster,* and that this will account for the Panjáb and the Doáb being full of his votaries at the time of Tímúr's invasion. But this is a very improbable supposition, and he has laid too much stress upon the use of the word Gabr, which, if taken in the exclusive sense adopted by him, would show not only that these tracts were entirely occupied by fire-worshippers, but that Hindús were to be found in very few places in either of them.

After this time, we find little notice of the prevalence of fire-worship in Northern India; and its observers must then have been exterminated, or they must have shortly after been absorbed into some of the lower Hindú communities. Badáúní, however, mentions the destruction of fire-altars one hundred years later by Sultán Sikandar in A.H. 910. It may not be foreign to this part of the inquiry to remark, that Abú-l Fazl speaks of the Gubree language as being one of the thirteen used in the súba of Kábul (Áín-i Akbarí, vol. ii. p. 1263). The Gubree language is also men­tioned in Bábar. There is a “Gubber” hill and pass not far from Bunnoo, inhabited by the Battani tribe; and on the remotest borders of Rohilkhand, just under the hills, there is a tribe called Gobrí, who retain some peculiar customs, which seem to have no connexion with Hindú superstition. They are said to have preceded the present occupants of the more cultivated lands to the south of the Taráí, and may possibly be the descendants of some of the Gabrs who found a refuge in Upper India. The name of Gobrí would certainly seem to encourage the notion of identity, for the difference of the first vowel, and the addition of a final one, offer no obstacle, any more than they do in the name of Gobryas,* who gave information to Socrates on the subject of the Persian religion, and is expressly declared by Plato to be an <greek>. According to J. Cunningham, there is a wild tribe called Magyas between Málwa and Gujarát, who are used as shikárís. They are supposed to have been fire-worshippers, but they have no pyrolatrous obser­vances at present.

There is another inferior Hindú tribe, to the west of the upper Jumna, and in the neighbourhood of the Tughlikpúr mentioned above, who, having the name of Magh,* and proclaiming themselves of foreign extraction (inasmuch as they are descendants of Rájá Mukhtesar, a Sarsutí Bráhman, King of Mecca, and maternal grand­father of Muhammad!!),* would seem to invite the attention of any inquirer after the remnant of the stock of Magians; but all their customs, both religious and social, are of the Hindú stamp, and their only peculiarity consists in being the sole caste employed in the cultivation of mendhí (Lawsonia inermis).*