The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c21.34

v1.c21.34

We may begin with reverting to the cure of epilepsy already mentioned. In the course of childhood the boy may be attacked by the dog-demon (epilepsy). What is the father to do? The names of the canine demons have been mentioned above with a parallel passage containing more of the same sort. These are to be averted by a sort of honorific propitiation. They are lauded; but their objectionable behaviour in this special case is deprecated. The author of our Sūtra contents himself with this. But a rival author or two (Hiraṇyakeçin, *G.S.*, II, 2, 7, 1 f.; Āpastamba, *Gṛihya Sūtra*, VII, 18, 1) are not content with the method here advocated. According to them, the father must make a hole in the roof of the royal gaming-hall and pull the boy through it, lay him on his back on dice strewn about, and then, while a gong is sounded, recite the deprecatory words to the dog-demons and pour curds and salt over the boy. Several items of this recipe are of interest, the avoidance of the door, the use of salt and curds to frighten demons, the gong for the same purpose to be beaten on the south side of the hall. These may be said to be universal antidotes; peculiar is the use of the dice, which has no parallel in the similar situations offered by the Sūtra. Finally the fact that the father makes a hole in the roof of the gaming-hall shows that it is made of thatch (easily repaired) and leads to the question what sort of architecture is normally to be found implied in the Sūtras. The gaming-hall is the public gambling-place which a king is directed to build for the use of his subjects, and curiously enough, with the exception of the householder’s own dwelling, it is almost the only reference to edifices found in the Sūtras. On the other hand, all the dicta of the Sūtras show that such life as is depicted is supposed to be country life; the district and the village are the geographical entities. Cities are not ignored but are despised¹. Thus there are no ceremonies for urban life. But there is a rite for ploughing, when sacrifice is made to Açani (the thunder-bolt) and to Sītā (the furrow), as well as to other bucolic deities, Araḍā, Anaghā, etc., as to the greater bucolic gods, Parjanya and Indra and Bhaga, with similar offerings on the occasion of the 'furrow sacrifice,' the 'threshing-floor sacrifice,' when one sows, reaps, or takes in the harvest, all indicating that the life portrayed is that of the village agriculturist, who must even 'offer a sacrifice at mole-heaps to Ākhurāja, the king of moles' (Gobhila, *Gṛihya Sūtra*, iv, 4, 28 f.; *ibid.* 30 f.). So the constant injunctions to 'go out of the village,' to sacrifice at a place where four roads meet, or on a hill, etc., imply life in villages even for householders and scholars rather than in towns (Gobhila, iii, 5, 32–35).