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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s3: § 3. The Removal of Hostile Influences

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s3

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§ 3. The Removal of Hostile Influences

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In a modified degree the principle is adopted in Vedic ritual that hostile powers should be propitiated. Thus the Rakṣases are given the portions that fall away from the grain, when it is pounded for the offerings: the blood, the entrails, the excrement of the animal victim, are made over to them or the snakes. Diseases treated as demons are propitiated and shown reverence in the hope, which is expressed, that they will depart, being satisfied with what is done for them. The disease Takman is entreated to depart, and addressed as a god, just as among the Esths down to modern times the same procedure of paying homage was adopted to make a disease depart.² What is more interesting is that both methods might be tried in close conjunction: the jackal might be addressed with formulae of reverence at the one time, and at the same time a fire brand be thrown at it.³ The ants receive an offering, but, if that fails, a poisonous mixture is made for them, and the aid of the gods in their utter extirpation is invoked.⁴ Snakes are simultaneously treated with reverence, and their extinction invoked: in the snake offering itself, while the snakes are fed, the sacrificer draws round the house a line of water to keep them away from it. But as a rule the attitude of the Vedic Indian to the hostile powers is the desire to banish them far from his life, to deceive and cheat them in every way: hence such actions as fasting to forbid them entrance, refraining from breathing, from intercourse, from looking round and so on. The same idea is also to be seen in the fact that on certain occasions disguises are adopted, and that the hair which is cut from the child or youth is carefully buried. In this last instance, however, in many cases the hair is prescribed to be buried in such a place as a cow stall, and in that instance it may be that the burying was rather to bring prosperity to the cows¹ than as a piece of prophylactic magic, or the two ideas may have been merged into one. The difficulties of realizing the precise sense of magic rites is far greater than that of interpreting religious ceremonies. Other modes of avoidance are mentioned, in addition to not looking round at any dread sight, or not coming into physical contact with what is dangerous: thus the mother is impure for ten or twelve days after birth and is avoided, and the bricks for Nirṛti at the setting up of the fire altar are put in place without actual contact. Steps are taken to efface the footsteps of the priest, who carries the fire of the sacrifice, just as a clog is bound to the foot of the dead to wipe out the tracks. Similarly the use of different doors from the normal may be prescribed: the child attacked by the doggie demon cough is taken into the assembly hall, where the spell to exercise the demon is to be performed, through a hole made in the thatch.² When the sacrificer dies, and the fire hitherto maintained by him becomes the place of resort of powers of death, it is removed, but not by the door. Or, again, something may be interposed to shut out the demons: water they cannot cross,³ and the use of water prevents the evil influence of the bricks for Nirṛti⁴ or the funeral rite exercising its power. Similar cases of the interposition of obstacles are presented by the use of a stone to sever the living from the dead, the mat⁵ employed for the same purpose, and at the sacrifice the enclosing sticks placed round the fire in order to keep off the demons.

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² Grohmann, *Ind. Stud.* ix. 413; cf. AV. i. 12, 13; v. 7; vi. 13, 20; PGS. i. 16. 24; HGS. ii. 7. 2; BDS. ii. 1. 32.

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³ HGS. i. 16. 20 ff.

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⁴ Kauç. cxvi.

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¹ Cf. Frazer, *The Magic Art*, i. 28 ff.

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² HGS. ii. 7. 2.

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³ MS. iv. 8. 5.

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⁴ Weber, *Ind. Stud.* iii. 243.

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⁵ Kauç. lxxxvi. 14.

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The use of water for actual washing away different forms of evil is extremely common, as in the final bath: the place where a pigeon has alighted is washed clean: the bride is washed to rid her of all evil influences: after dealings with Rudra, demons, or the Fathers, it is necessary to purify oneself by touching water, but not rain water, which is deemed to have some degree of impurity and to spoil offerings on which it falls. The face is wiped after an evil dream.⁶ Lead and wool are used also for cleansing purposes.⁷ The urine of a cow has as in Iran and in modern India great properties of cleansing.⁸ The new-born child is washed, and also the breast of the mother: but smoke is also used to purify the child, while fire is a constant source of protection. The sickle with which is cut the grass for the sacrifice is made glowing by means of fire, thus driving off the Rakṣases.

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⁶ HGS. i. 16. 5.

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⁷ Kauç. lxxi. 16, 17.

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⁸ KÇS. xxv. 11. 16.

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The use of noise to drive away demons is common: the drums at the Mahāvrata rite are paralleled by the sounds made by the Soma stones at the pressing, which are made doubly resonant by the device of putting under them sounding holes. The noise of the Sāman is also powerful to drive away evil, if the critics of the Sāman singers also make it a ground for the breaking off of the holy study for the day on which it is heard. Pots are beaten at burial. When a gong is beaten, it is expected that the demon which has a child in its grip will be driven away.¹ The fragrant bdellion also serves to drive away demons, while the Apāmārga plant is famed for this service, which, as its name denotes, it derives from its power to wipe off the influences of such powers. The ritual use of beating is not unknown: it occurs during the royal consecration, when the priests gently beat the prince,² and it may perhaps be recognized in the beating of their thighs by the maidens who dance round the fire at the Mahāvrata, bearing on their heads the water pitchers.³

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¹ Kauç. lxxxvi. 15; HGS. ii. 7. 2.

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² KÇS. xv. 7. 6; Weber, *Rājasūya*, p. 63.

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³ Cf. PB. ix. 8. 9; Vait. xxxiv. 9, 10.

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The use of a staff is of special interest: the student is given a staff, and is forbidden ever to let anything intervene between his body and it. When his studentship is over, it is thrown in the water with the rest of his outfit, but he obtains a new staff, and this is expressly stated to be of use not merely for protection against human foes but also from Rakṣases and Piçācas.⁴ The Soma offerer has a staff, which he receives from the priest to guard him, and which he ought never to let go.⁵ The Maitrāvaruṇa priest stands through the service with staff in hand, slightly bending forward, in the attitude of readiness to smite the demons.⁶ A specially consecrated staff brings fortune wherever one goes: if a circle is drawn with it and one thinks of a place, then no enemy can enter that place.⁷ The wooden sword of the sacrificer is used to cut up the earth on the altar place, and it is thrown into the dust heap, being treated as the enemy, Araru, who is destroyed.⁸ After an offering to the Fathers the sword is drawn over the altar to send away the demons. Small staves are shot in the air at the wedding ceremony to destroy the sight of the Rakṣases.

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⁴ GGS. iii. 1. 14, 27; iv. 9. 17; AGS. iii. 8. 20; ÇGS. ii. 13. 1, 2, 8; PGS. ii. 6. 31, &c.

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⁵ ÇB. iii. 2. 1. 32.

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⁶ TS. vi. 1. 4. 2; AÇS. iii. 1. 20; KÇS. vi. 4. 6.

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⁷ SVB. ii. 4. 1, 2.

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⁸ VS. i. 29 ff.; ÇÇS. iv. 4. 2.

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Yet another form is that of shaking: the black antelope skin used at a sacrifice is shaken out with the view of removing any evil that may have crept there: the corner of the garment of him who offers to the Fathers is similarly shaken to remove any evil spirit. Remains of Surā were thrown away on an ant heap. Akin to these rites is the use of a comb to purify the hair of the bride from dangerous influences of any sort, and also the passing of people through narrow holes, of which the classical example is that of Apālā in the Rigveda,⁹ whom Indra dragged through the hole of the chariot, of the cart, and of the yoke, and so healed of a skin disease, and which is to be seen also in the marriage ritual, when the hole of the yoke of a car is placed on the bride.¹ The aim of this rite is probably also to be seen in the making of a hole in the roof of the assembly hall for the introduction of the boy who is ill: the narrowness was probably a feature of the rite. The question which arises in this case, as in the case of the passing of an army under the yoke in the Roman usage,² is whether the guilt of blood or the disease is considered to be wiped away by the contact with the sides of the hole, or whether it is to be classed as one of the devices by which an enemy is deceived and the angry demons or spirits of the dead are baulked of their prey.

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⁹ Cf. Kauç. xv. 4; lxxii. 16; RV. viii. 91. 7; von Schroeder (VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.) has a fanciful explanation of the legend; cf. Oldenberg, *Ṛgveda-Noten*, ii. 142, 143; Zachariae, *Zeitsch. des Vereins f. Volksk.* xx. 154 ff.

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¹ Winternitz, *Hochzeitsrituell*, pp. 43 ff.

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² Warde Fowler, *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, pp. 267, 268; Frazer, *Balder the Beautiful*, ii. 192; Caland, *Altindisches Zauberritual*, p. 31; Henry, *La magie dans l'Inde antique*, p. 133.

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In many other cases the plan is adopted of the transfer of the evil to some other person or thing. The principle is at work in the case of the scapegoat, of which the classic example is to be found at the final bath of the horse sacrifice. The bride's garment after marriage is hung up on a tree or post, so that the evil influence in it may be disposed of. Similarly the cloth with which she is wiped is given to the guardian of the maiden, who puts it in a cowstall or hangs it up in the wood.³ The Vrātyas at the end of the festival, by which they are admitted to the Brahmanical community, hand their apparel and utensils to other Vrātyas, or an inferior Brahman of Magadha, who bears away the defects inherent in them. A cow which is unfit for a fee is given to an enemy. After a miscarriage the woman is taken to three different huts: she is made to stand on lead and washed, her dark garment is taken off, and the hut burned.⁴ The sufferer from a headache goes out with a turban on and scatters grains: when an attack comes on, he deposits the turban, the winnowing fan which he has used, and a bowstring: apparently the demon is to come out of the head into the turban and to make for the grains, when he will be attacked by the bow.⁵ To avert a bad omen a hook is tied to the foot of a black bird, a cake attached, and it is sent away to hang on to the enemy as the hook hangs to it. Sleeplessness is banished to Trita Āptya or to an enemy. An offering is prescribed, by which it is possible to prevent two enemies transferring to a third person their mutual hatred. For a person who is possessed of an evil spirit various devices are combined: fragrant substances are mixed together and burned, the person concerned stands against the water of a stream, and water is poured over him, an offering is hung up on a bird-frequented tree, in each case to take away the evil.⁶ Fever is banished to the distant people of Gandhāra and the Mūjavants. A ceremony is prescribed by which when a man is thirsty in illness he transfers the thirst to another man.⁷ The disease jaundice is transferred to birds of appropriate hue, like the thrush or parrot. Fever is transferred to a frog by pouring water over the patient and putting a frog under the bed;¹ the connexion of the frog with the disease may be very old. An interesting means of finding out the presence in a house of a demon like a Piçāca is to hang up in the house kindling wood, and the strew for the sacrifice: if they are moved, the presence of the spirit is certain.²

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³ Kauç. lxxvi. 1; lxxix. 24; AV. xiv. 2. 48-50.

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⁴ Kauç. xxxiv. 3.

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⁵ Kauç. xxvi. 2. Cf., however, Henry, *La magie dans l'Inde antique*, pp. 206, 207.

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⁶ Kauç. xxvi. 29 ff.

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⁷ Kauç. xxvii. 9 ff.

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¹ Kauç. xxvi. 18 ff.; xxxii. 17; cf. Hubert and Mauss, *Année sociol.* ii. 92; Bloomfield, *JAOS.* xvii. 173.

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² Kauç. xxv. 34.

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Diseases are specially often the subjects of exorcism in one form or another: a woman suffering from lung disease must be rubbed by a chaste man with balls of fresh lotus leaves, limb by limb, and thereafter the leaves are thrown to the west.³ He who suffers from an inherited disease is deluged with water and a plough is held, apparently a mixture of washing and contact.⁴ Diarrhœa is dealt with by tying a string round a bunch of Muñja grass, and giving the patient to eat earth from a field and from an ant-heap.⁵ Sick cows are made to drink salt water.⁶

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³ ApGS. ix. 10.

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⁴ Kauç. xxvii. 1; Henry, *op. cit.*, p. 204.

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⁵ Bloomfield, *Seven Hymns of AV.*, p. 3.

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⁶ Kauç. xix. 1. Other rites in TA. iv. 36; KhGS. iv. 3. 13.

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