A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.78

v1.c8.s3.78

The word "aṃhas," however, which we here translate by "affliction," combines in itself the meanings "distress, affliction" on one side, and "guilt, sin" on the other. Therefore the above-mentioned litany can be reckoned among that class of Atharvaveda hymns which is connected with expiatory ceremonies (prāyaścittāni). These expiatory formulæ and spells for cleansing from guilt and sin are less different from the spells of healing than one might think. For, to Indian ideas, an expiation, a prāyaścitta, is necessary not only for "sins" in our sense, *i.e.* offences against the moral rule, or transgressions against religion, but by the side of propitiatory formulae for imperfectly performed sacrifices and ceremonies, for crimes consciously and unconsciously committed, for sins of thought, for non-payment of debts, especially gambling debts, for the marriage prohibited by the law, of a younger brother before the elder, and beside general prayers for liberation from guilt and sin and their consequences, we find also propitiatory formulas, and, in connection with atonement ceremonies, songs and spells by which mental and physical infirmities, unpropitious omens (*e.g.* by the flight of birds or the birth of twins or the birth of a child under an unlucky star), bad dreams and sudden accidents are "expiated," *i.e.* warded off or weakened in their effects. The conception "guilt," "sin," "evil," "misfortune" are continually merged one into the other. The fact is that everything evil—disease and misfortune, just the same as guilt and sin—is looked on as caused by evil spirits. Like the invalid or the madman, so is the evil-doer, too, the sinner, possessed by a wicked demon. The same fiends which bring disease, also send the unfavourable omens and the accidents themselves. Thus, for example, Ath. X, 3, an amulet, which is tied on the person, is praised extravagantly in twenty-five verses and glorified as a mighty protection against dangers and evils of every kind, against evil magic, against bad dreams and unfavourable omens, against "the sin which my mother, which my father, which my brothers and which my sister and which we ourselves have committed," and at the same time as a universal remedy for all diseases.