History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.17

v7.c92.17

In the Āp. Gṛ. (III. 9. 5-8) it is said that the plant used by the co-wife is called Pāthā and the hymn (Ṛg. X 145) is employed for securing domination over the husband and for harming a co-wife Ṛg I 191 is a charm against various poisons In the Atharvaveda there are numerous hymns styled 'śatrunāśana' (destructive of enemies) e g. II. 12-24, III. 6, IV. 3 and 40, V 8, VI. 6, 65-67 and 134 Atharva II. 11 is styled 'Kṛtyā-dūṣaṇa' (counteracting black magic). A few of the typical verses may be cited¹⁶⁶⁹ here. 'Employ magic spells against him, who hates us and whom we hate; attain (i. e. dominate) him who is superior and surpass him who is (*our*) equal'; 'O Soma! strike in the mouth with your thunderbolt him who speaks evil of us that speak what is good and may he, being crushed, run away'. The Sukranītisāra (ed. by G. Oppert, 1882) provides that the Tantras are the Upaveda of the Atharvaveda. Atharva III. 25 and VI. 130 are spells respectively employed by a man and a woman to soften the heart of the person loved; Atharva II. 30 and 31 are charms for driving away or destroying worms that cause diseases and V. 36 is a charm against *piśācas* (goblins)¹⁶⁷⁰ The sound ‘phat’ occurs in Vāj. S. In the Āp. Śr. Sūtra *phat* is employed in offering Soma stalks in *abhicāra* (employment of spells for a malevolent purpose). Phat is a sound frequently employed in the worship of Devī in Tantra works. But no direct connection or line of evolution from the Atharvaveda to the Tantras can be traced. The Tattvasangraha of Śāntarakṣita (705-762 A. D.) connects even Buddha with magic practices. It says ‘all wise men declare that it is dharma from which results worldly prosperity and the highest beatitude. Seen results such as intelligence, health, rulership are produced by properly observing the rules about mantras, yoga and the like declared by him (i. e.¹⁶⁷¹ by Buddha)’. But one cannot place implicit reliance on any writer's statement made more than a thousand years after the event or person referred to in it. There are, however, stories in the Pali sacred books about the cultivation of magic powers among Buddha's own disciples, e. g. the story of Bhāradvāja¹⁶⁷² who rose in the air for a bowl carved out of very fragrant sandalwood. Further, there is a story of miraculous powers possessed by all the members of the family of a layman called Meṇḍaka (viz. himself, his wife, son and daughter-in law) in Mahāvagga VI. 34. 1 ff. (S. B. E. vol. XVII. pp 121 ff) Here again we have to remember that there is nothing in the *Tipiṭaka* or any early Buddhist document to prove that Buddha or his first disciples had anything to do with *mudrās*, mantras and *maṇḍalas* and that neither Yuan Chwang nor I-tsing refers to any Tantras, though both of them refer to the Buddhist monasteries as centres of Buddhist culture (vide Dr. De in N. I A. vol. I pp. 1 ff). In the introduction to Sādhanamālā (vol. II. LXVIII.) Dr. Bhattacharya relies upon the words 'Sugatopadiṣṭam' and 'Sugataiḥ' occurring on pp. 334-335 of the Sādhanamālā for holding that Buddha himself must have promulgated some mantras. There are two weighty objections viz. 'Sugataiḥ' does not always mean Buddha, but means also 'followers of Buddha' and secondly, just as most Hindu Tantras are dialogues between Śiva and Pārvatī, so later Buddhist writers might have easily said that they are quoting the Buddha; the same objection applies to Kamalaśīla's remarks quoted by Dr. Bhattacharya, as Kamalaśīla and his teacher flourished about 1200 years after Buddha.