The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c21.39

v1.c21.39

Another subject claiming the attention of the Sūtra-maker is the efficacy of amulets. These are tied upon the priests, as a sort of final expression of good-will, in the Āçvayuja rite. They are made of lac and herbs (Gobh., III, 8, 6). Minor superstitions abound. If one yawns, one must say, ‘May will and wisdom abide in me,’ evidently a phase of the popular belief that the soul may escape in a yawn or sneeze (Hir., *G.S.*, I, 5, 16, 2). Signs of ill-luck which must be averted by a sacred formula are found in the presence in the house of a dove, of bees, or an anthill, in the budding forth of a post, etc. (*ibid.* I, 5, 17, 5). The transmission of sin is illustrated by the dictum that if one touches a sacrificial post the faults committed at the sacrifice are incurred (*ibid.* 16, 16); also by the injunction that when one’s hair is cut a well-disposed person should gather it up and hide it away, as the well-disposed person (the mother, for example) thus ‘hides the sin in the hair,’ probably a refinement on the original notion of not losing one’s soul-strength at the hands of some ill-disposed person (*ibid.* I, 2, 9, 18; cf. Āçv., I, 17, 10, etc., where the formula is ‘for long life’). Whether the objection to certain trees as liable to cause eye-trouble, etc., is grounded in fact or fancy, causing the injunction to transplant them, may be questioned, but the original cause has been lost in the maze of superstition, which makes the Açvattha tree injurious on the east side of the house, the Plaksha on the south, the Nyagrodha on the west, and Udumbara on the north.