History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.32.6

v7.c92.32.6

offerings of the heads of animals, lion as *vāhana*, the slaughter of Mahiṣāsura, the doctrines of Pāśupatas written down on small books of palm leaves containing jugglery, tantra and mantras, Durgā-stotra written on a piece of cloth, ruined temples of the Mātṛs and description of the Draviḍa devotee as knowing thousands of wonderful stories about Śrīparvata. Bāṇa describes at length what queen Vilāsavatī, pining for a son, began doing to placate all Gods viz. sleeping in the shrines of Caṇḍikā where guggulu was being incessantly burnt, taking auspicious baths on nights of dark 14th in public squares where magic circles had been drawn by great magicians, visiting temples of Mātṛs, wearing amulets inside which were pieces of birch leaves on which mantras had been written with yellow pigment, and, when delivery was near, her bed was rendered holy with various herbs, roots and yantras (figures or diagrams). In the Harṣacarita (III) there is a reference to magic circles and to human sacrifices in the description of the Śaiva ascetic Bhairavācārya who had all the Śaiva-saṁhitās by heart, who performed the *japa* of a mahāmantra called Mahākālahṛdaya a crore of times in a cemetery and wanted the help of Puṣpabhūti (an ancestor of Emperor Harṣa) for perfection in that mantra to be achieved by subduing a *vetāla* and who ultimately attained to the position of Vidyādhara and rose into the starry firmament.