The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s4.1

v2.c32.s4.1

The sacrificer must avail himself of the same means to attack his enemies as they use to attack him: if the enemy assail, the skilled priest can send against them the demon Apvā which seems to be the diarrhœa caused by terror, and to symbolize in emphatic fashion the fear produced by panic in battle: this performance is already recorded in the Rigveda.⁷ So also it is perfectly in keeping with the ideas of magic that terror and fear would be conveyed to the enemy by the process of sending a white-footed one, presumably a sheep, against the opposing host.⁸ In such a case Apvā is indeed a dreadful thing, but it is in the control of the priest and therefore useful to him. In other cases he has more direct control: he can use one substance for washing himself, another he can drink or eat, another use as an amulet; with yet another he can rub or anoint himself.⁹ The avoidance of the touch of anything dangerous is one side of a practice, of which the other is the touching of things which are beneficial. The touching of the victim has two sides: it may convey the death to which the victim is being led, but it may also convey—and this is the view which Brahman logic¹⁰ finally adopts—the power and strength of the divine essence. Hence we have an enormous number of rites, the standing on a tiger-skin to obtain royal power, the use of an antelope-skin, the placing of the wife on a bull's hide, the placing of her and of the student upon a stone to attain firmness, the depositing at the fire-piling and other offerings on the place of the fire altar of a piece of earth from an ant-heap, since the ants as finders of waters give richness: the same ants *per contra* are often used to destroy dangerous substances like the remnants of offerings.