The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s7.4

v2.c32.s7.4

Of the spell one characteristic is the regularity with which many gods are invoked: it is absurd to suppose that in these enumerations there was normally any sense of the different deities invoked: all that was desired was to strengthen the spell by the utterance of as many names of deities as possible: in some cases the mention of individuals is dropped and merely the numbers are given, 99 or 88 or 77 and so on: the fondness for such numbers is a feature of many forms of magic.¹ Analogous to this feature is the fact that when anything is to be dealt with every conceivable place where it may be is enumerated: a disease is banished, not merely from the place where it is paining the person afflicted, but from all his members. On the other hand, where possible the exact name and origin of the thing dealt with must be given: if one can name father and mother so much the better: the drum² is described as coming from the lord of the forest and strung by the cows. Sometimes names of, to us, inexplicable and perhaps esoteric character are given, such as *hrūḍu* applied in the Atharvaveda³ to fever, in accordance with the well-known rule that in magic a mysterious name is the most potent of all.⁴