View source for Thuggee

=== Possible precolonial accounts ===
During his travels across India in the 7th century, the Chinese monk [[Xuanzang|Hsüen Tsang]] was attacked by pirates on the [[Ganges]] and narrowly escaped being sacrificed to [[Durga]].{{sfn|Van Woerkens|2002|p=109}}{{sfn|Wagner|2007|p=26}} On another occasion, and while he was journeying to [[Pataliputra]], Hsüen Tsang was told while passing a temple that no foreigner who entered it ever came out again.{{sfn|Van Woerkens|2002|p=109}} The 19th century [[archaeologist]] [[Alexander Cunningham]] claimed to have identified the temple and that this was an early account of thuggee.{{sfn|Van Woerkens|2002|p=110}}{{sfn|Wagner|2007|p=26}} [[Kim A. Wagner]] asserts the view that, by this rationale, every account of [[banditry]] and [[human sacrifice]] in [[History of India|ancient India]] could be linked to the thugs of the 19th century.{{sfn|Wagner|2007|p=26}} According to a 14th-century chronicle by [[Ziauddin Barani]], [[Sultan of Delhi|Sultan]] [[Jalal-ud-Din Khalji]] deported 1,000 arrested 'thags' from [[Delhi]] to [[Bengal]] sometime between 1290 and 1296, however the chronicle makes no mention of what they were arrested for.{{sfn|Dash|2005|p=298}}{{sfn|Wagner|2007|p=26}} The 15th–16th century poet [[Surdas]] wrote illustratively of a 'thag' luring a pilgrim with sweets and wine and then murdering and robbing them.{{sfn|Wagner|2007|pp=26-27}}

Following his travels across India in 1666–1667, [[Jean de Thévenot]] wrote in 1684 of the "cunningest robbers in the world" operating in the Delhi area that strangled their victims with a [[noose|running noose]] and used attractive women to lure travellers.{{sfn|Van Woerkens|2002|p=111}}{{sfn|Wagner|2007|pp=27-28}}{{sfn|Dash|2005|p=37}} In 1672, the [[List of emperors of the Mughal Empire|Mughal emperor]] [[Aurangzeb]] issued a {{IAST|[[Firman|farman]]}} specifying the punishment to be meted out to stranglers, including those that were "habituated to the work" or were notorious for it among the local population.{{sfn|Wagner|2007|pp=28-29}}{{sfn|Dash|2005|p=38}}{{sfn|Singha|1993|p=105}} [[John Fryer (travel writer)|John Fryer]] wrote of his experience in 1675 witnessing the execution of fifteen members of a bandit gang near [[Surat]] that had strangled and robbed passing travellers using a cotton [[bowstring]].{{sfn|Wagner|2007|p=28}}{{sfn|Dash|2005|pp=37-38}}{{sfn|Van Woerkens|2002|pp=111-112}} Around 1680, an Indian news-writer for the {{IAST|Waqa'i Ajmer}} referred to "highway robbers known in [[Hindi]] as ''thags''" in [[Rajputana]].<ref>{{harvnb|Wagner|2007|p=237}}{{bulleted list|{{cite book|last=Habib|first=Irfan|author-link=Irfan Habib|date=1963|title=The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556–1707)|publisher=Asia Publishing House|location=New York|page=68|url=https://ia601400.us.archive.org/3/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.243812/2015.243812.3171-The_text.pdf}}}}</ref> In 1785, [[James Forbes (artist)|James Forbes]] recounted how an Indian acquaintance had witnessed the arrest of several men that belonged to a tribe he referred to as ''phanseegurs'', describing how they would deceive and strangle travellers.{{sfn|Wagner|2007|pp=29-30}} A November 1797 tax list prepared for [[Maharaja]] [[Daulat Rao Sindhia]], and obtained by a British official, covering 20 villages across the {{IAST|[[pargana]]s}} of Parihara<!--the one in uttar pradesh--> and [[Sursa|Sursae]] lists 318 houses as belonging to thugs, who were subjected to a soldier tax.<ref>{{harvnb|Wagner|2004|p=958}}; {{harvnb|Wagner|2007|p=95}}</ref>{{sfn|Dash|2005|pp=35-36}}{{efn|The tax list was obtained in 1834 by [[William Henry Sleeman]], the colonial administrator later put in charge of the British Anti-thuggee Campaign, and published as 'Appendix O' in his 1836 book ''Ramaseeana''.{{sfn|Wagner|2004|pp=932,935,958}}}}