Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c12.7

c12.7

looks upwards, bites its teeth together, groans, yawns, moves eyebrows, teeth and the lips, often spits out froth, becomes lean, does not sleep at night, has swollen eyes, suffers from diarrhoea and hoarseness, smells like flesh and blood, does not eat as before, does not take to breast ( MN 427; AHr 6.3.4-8; AS 6.3.187; Bhāv 2.4.197 ). The symptoms are fever and continuous crying (AS, AHr). Suśruta mentions nine *grahas*— four male and five female (*pūtanā*) which are also mentioned in MN, Vang and Bhāv. Cakradatta 406-12 speaks of twelve female fiends which he calles *mātṛkā* and which attack the child and make it ill from the 1st till the 12th day, month or year. AS 6.3.187; AHr 6.3.1-3 likewise distinguish twelve demons (*graha*), seven of which are female and the rest male. The *grahas* requested Skanda to procure livelihood for them; he turned to Śiva who advised them to attack the children in the houses in which the gods, fathers and guests, Brāhmaṇs and teachers are not honoured, no sacrifice is offered, broken dishes are used for food and in general the religious customs and rules of purity are not observed. They would thus get good livelihood and honour. Therefore such children whose nurses are dirty, or they themselves are unclean, or who cry at the time of morning and evening prayers, or who are angry, frightful or in a bad mood, or are alone in vacant places, are tormented by the *grahas* in sleep or even in awakened condition by all kinds of spirits. The *grahas* then enter the bodies of the children where they can be perceived only with the eye of science. For they can take any form they like and are invisible for ordinary mortals. The voluntary offences of the nurse or the mother also lead to the attack of the *grahas* ( AS 1. c.; Su 6.37; 6.27.6 ). For driving out the *grahas* medicines, baths, fumigation and the like and special sacrifices connected with the invocations of individual *grahas* are recommended besides anointing. Thus an oblation is offered to *Naigameṣa* with an invocation which calls upon " the famous god who has the sight of a goat, can take any shape that he likes " to guard the child ( Su 6.36.11 ).