The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s2.15

v2.c32.s2.15

It is natural, that, representing as it does a part of the primitive science of man, magic should be found in similar forms all the world over. There is little that is of special character in Indian magic, and the variety of its rites is enormous: fortunately or unfortunately for our opinion of the intelligence of the Vedic Indian not only has the Atharvaveda come down to us, but the Kauçika Sūtra contains (vii–lii) in the fullest detail, often however unintelligible to us, the nature of the rites which were used with the texts of that Veda. Other details occur in the Pariçiṣṭas of the Atharvaveda, in the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa, in the Ṛgvidhāna and minor texts. The antiquity of these works is by no means very great: the age of most of the practices may be indefinitely remote. The only practices of which we can say definitely that they are innovations are those, not at all few in number, in which priestly ingenuity has used mythical ideas, in order to found on them a magic practice. Thus in one rite laid down in the Kauçika Sūtra¹ we find that as a means of driving away evil spirits the use of a food is prescribed, which has been cooked with wood of a tree in which birds nest: this is due merely to the fact that in accompanying verses Indra, the averter of evil spirits, is invited to come as a bird to a tree.