The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c23.s2.55

v1.c23.s2.55

Still more interesting is the treatment of a child which has a barking cough;¹ the demon within him is exorcized to let loose the child, being addressed as Kūrkura, good Kūrkura, and doggy; he is assured that Saramā is his mother, Sīsara his father, and the brindled dogs of Yama his brothers: the idea of the demon cough in dog form is perfectly clear: its name is also given as Kumāra. When the man performs the Vaiçvadeva offerings of the domestic ritual, his wife outside the house offers food² to the man, to the woman, to every age, to the white one with black teeth, the lord of bad women, to those who allure her children, whether in the wood or the forest. On the day of the final bath the pupil banishes from him all the evil forms of Agni, ten in number, which he enumerates.³ Demons figure among those to whom he is given in charge by the teacher on his reception.⁴ In the ritual we find in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka⁵ a list of hideous forms to be driven away from the offering, Viçīrṣṇī, Gṛdhraçīrṣṇī, and so on. The sacrifice is full of all sorts of magic devices to repel the evil spirits, who, on the one hand, are allowed to have offerings of the blood, though only with inaudible words of offering lest the speech of the speaker should become the voice of a Rakṣas,⁶ but on the other hand are kept off by the use of the enclosing sticks, by the free employment of fire, by the drawing of magic circles, and by the sound of the pressing stones.⁷