The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c32.s8.22

v2.c32.s8.22

In other respects the parallelism between sacrifice and magic ceremony is extremely close: in both cases the operator expects and receives a reward, but the Kauçika Sūtra only rarely gives us an exact measure of the Dakṣiṇā payable: in some cases the materials used may have been the fee,⁴ but often these would be too worthless or too valuable and it is reasonable to believe⁵ that the fee was usually fixed by agreement. The magic ceremony can serve most of the purposes of the formal sacrifice: just as a main object of the regular offering is long life, so an infinity of charms provide life, and amulets of varied kinds are provided by the magician. There are spells for the house, to guard against fire, to bring rain, to secure increase of cattle, to prevent injury and increase the growth of crops, to secure safety on a journey or trade venture and success in gambling. Spells provide success in the assembly, bring victory in war, restore an exiled king, produce harmony or discord among the several classes of the people just as sacrifices do. Even more than sacrifice are magic ceremonies adapted to secure success in love, the overthrow of rivals, constancy between husband and wife, the birth of a son rather than of a daughter, safety in child-birth, and the protection of the life, always precarious and doubly so in such a climate as that of India, of the infant, and spells as well as sacrifices protect the whole adolescence and life of man. Specially rich in spells is the domain of medicine: remedies are provided in this way against many diseases, including intestinal worms, to which the Vedic Indian attributed many diseases with which they had no concern; fever whose several varieties were already known from their periods of recurrence; wounds and fractures, one formula used having some faint claim to be Indo-European in character;⁶ skin affections including even leprosy;⁷ the effects of poison; and even perhaps diseases ranked as hereditary.⁸ The means employed are often obscure, and, while traces of some medical knowledge are not wanting—the use of the probe⁹ has been recognized by Henry¹⁰ and Caland¹—in the main the spell seems to be relied on, together with symbolic acts for banishing, for example, the yellow jaundice to the yellow bird.