Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c15.s1.t2.5

c15.s1.t2.5

Then there was magical power of rising in the sky *khecarī vijjā*³⁵ We hear of a thief who went to the burial ground, put up a hanger there with burning charcoal and a pike below. The thief after chanting the spells eight hundred times cut off one string of the hanger and thus cutting off the four strings achieved the *vijjā*³⁶ It is mentioned in the *Utkādhikāra* a commentary that Nattumatta, a *vijjāhara*, in order to attain efficiency in certain *vijjā* went to a bamboo-grove (*vaṃśakuḍaga*) and having fastened his feet up, and inhaling smoke started practising penance.³⁷ Then we are told of a king who wanted to learn spells from a Matanga which he could learn only when he occupied a lower seat.³⁸ It was a belief that the spells lost their efficacy when one uttered falsehood.³⁹