The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c21.13

v1.c21.13

The rites involving the goblins of disaster and disease have naturally a prominent place in the domestic ritual of the Gṛihya Sūtras and afford us glimpses of an otherwise unknown pantheon. The wife herself, who has so little to do with texts, must go outside her house and offer food to ‘the white demon with black teeth, the lord of bad women,’ and if she bears a child the husband must daily, till the wife’s confinement ends, offer rice and mustard in the fire near the door where the wife is confined, dispersing demons whose names are given: ‘Çaṇḍa, Marka, Upavīra, Çauṇḍikeya, Ulūkhala, Malimlucha, Droṇāsa, Chyavana,’ all indicative of trouble, as are those that follow (apparently a supplementary list), ‘Ālikhat, Animisha, Kiṃvadanta, Upaçruti, Haryaksha, Kumbhin, Çatru, Pātrapāṇi, Nṛimaṇi, Hantrīmukha, Sarshapāruṇa, Chyavana, avaunt’.¹ But if the child falls ill with epilepsy, the ‘dog-disease,’ the father cures him by covering him with a net and murmuring,