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Thuggee

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"The Thuggee was an obscenity that worshiped Kali with human sacrifices."
―Phillip James Blumburtt[src]

The Thuggee cult was a secret religious society centered in India. They spoke in a secret language and members (sometimes referred to as Thugs) gathered and worshiped the Hindu goddess Kali Ma with barbaric human sacrifices at secret temples, in order to feed the blood hunger of the goddess so that she would not unleash chaos in the earthly realm.

The British Army, led by Major William Sleeman attempted to eradicate the group in the early 19th century, forcing the Thuggee to go underground. A loyal priest of Kali hid two of five Sankara Stones in a diamond mine in Pankot Province, which was later converted to a secret Kali temple.

History[]

Early activity[]

"Soon, we will have all the five Sankara stones, and the Thuggees will be all powerful."
―Mola Ram[src]

The Thuggee cult was a centuries-old group of assassins believed to have originated from so-called "Mohammaden" tribes whose practices were, or became, unacceptable to mainstream Islam. However, the group eventually coalesced around the destruction aspect of the Hindu goddess Kali. Members roamed India, Bengal and parts of Tibet preying on travelers and merchants that they deemed to be unrepentant, strangling them with a silk cloth and taking their valuables. Victims' bodies were mutilated in honor of Kali. However, the Thuggee had also developed a reputation for protecting pilgrims which left opinion of the group as mixed.[1][2]

In the 13th century, the Thuggee were recognized as a tax-paying religious organization,[1] but they became strongest by the 1600s,[3] so by the 1700s, their attacks had left many fearful of traveling by road and the development of the Indian rail network meant that victims were increasingly harder to come by. Instead, the Thuggee turned on the pilgrims and became despised by many for being oathbreakers and murderers.[1] It was said that the cult had simply been sparing those on pilgrimage to avoid bringing another deity's wrath down upon Kali.[1][2] How many Indian citizens the Thuggee killed during their heyday between the 1600s and the mid-1800s remains unknown, but it was estimated as high as 2 million.[4]

In response, the Thuggee took to more secretive methods to disguise themselves, ambushing victims outside of small towns and villages and taking their captives elsewhere for sacrifice. Meanwhile, the British had arrived in India and they held little interest in Thuggee activities, dismissing attacks as being those of wild animals. Though British merchants were also being targeted, it was not until army patrols disappeared and officials began demanding an explanation that something was to be done about the cult.[2]

Surviving into modern history[]

Between 1820—1850, British forces aggressively swept through India to eradicate the Thuggee. Kali's worship was outlawed, her temples destroyed and captured Thuggee priests were executed.[2] Stamped out by the British since the 1830s, the Thuggees reappeared as the "bad guys" in numerous works of the Western literature, such as Rudyard Kipling's Gunga Din, Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days and one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Furthermore, the sect's name bequeathed to the English language the word "thug".[4] Nevertheless, the cult survived in smaller pockets.[5]

In 1930, Indiana Jones and Marya Smirnova confronted the fellowship of a resurrected Thuggee temple in Bhubaneshwar. They discovered that the Anglo-Indian captain Blake had revived Thug practices to strike back at the peoples of both countries who had rejected his mixed-race heritage.[6]

Temple of doom sacrifice

The Thuggee practiced human sacrifice.

Five years later, Jones encountered another resurgent Thuggee congregation at Pankot Palace, led by the high priest Mola Ram. Ram sought to achieve Indian independence from British rule, albeit by violent means as opposed to the better known peaceful methods of Mahatma Ghandi. Afterwards, Mola Ram planned to systematically eradicate the world's religions in favor of Thuggeeism.[7]

The Pankot cult was able to operate in secrecy through the cooperation of Pankot's Prime Minister, Chattar Lal. It was disbanded when Mola Ram was killed and the members were either killed or captured by Captain Blumburtt's troops.[7] The cult of Kali had been broken forever.[8] Though Lal escaped, the British kept a vigilant eye out for Lal should he try to establish another Kali temple,[2][9] leading Jones to consider the cult extinct once again.[10]

Legacy[]

In 1943, while on a World War II mission in Zile Muri-yo, Haiti to retrieve the Heart of Darkness for Adolf Hitler, Doctor Edwin Gruber explained to his fellow Nazis that as part of the Third Reich's efforts to create invincible men, they needed to find the so-called Haitian invincibility formula their Fuhrer sought, citing the Thuggee cult's use of the Black Sleep of Kali Ma as an example.[11]

Members[]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Sourcebook
  3. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom junior novel
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Indiana Jones Handbook
  5. ↑ Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
  6. ↑ Indiana Jones et la Cité de la Foudre
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  8. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (TSR)
  9. ↑ IndianaJones.com Chattar Lal's Marshall College entry on IndianaJones.com (backup link on Archive.org)
  10. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom novel
  11. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead

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