Indian Antiquary Vol 05

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 30

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JANUARY, 1876.
hardly extinct in Europe. This is the manner day had passed since the transfer, the undutiful prescribed :-"Make an image with wax in the spirit fell in love with its master's wife, and form of your enemy, take it in your right hand succeeded in its nefarious purpose. A pious at night and hold your chain of beads in your Hindu assures me that the woman still lives, left hand, then burn the image with due rites, leading a very unhappy life with the demon, and it shall slay your enemy in a fortnight." the husband being long dead and gone." The noAnother strong spell for evil is to take a human tion of demoniac intercourse with mortal women bone from a barial-ground and recite over it a is of extreme and general antiquity, ranging thousand times the powerful Malayala mantra, from Genesis (vi. 2) and the reputed prædilunamely, “Om! Hram! Hram ! Swino-faced god- vian Book of Enoch to Merlin and Mother dess, seize him, seize him as a victim ! drink; Shipton: see Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 283 for an acdrink his blood! eat, eat his flesh! O image of count of the stones sold at the Dharmasimminent death, Bhagavati of Malayala, glaum ! thâla Temple in South Kanara, the residence of glaum ! Om!" The bone thrown into an enemy's seven most dreaded and malignant Bhůtas; house will cause his ruin. Again, if a paste be these stones carry the powers of the Bhūtas formed of human bones, the above spell recited with them, and can be used by their purchasers over it a hundred times, and the paste then against enemies with dire effect. One of the mixed with food or drink, it will cause death native notions respecting pandu kulls or kistin a week. This recalls the famous Unguentum vaens-is that men of old times constructed them Mirificum, or Wondrous Ointment, of which Sir for the purpose of hiding treasure: hence it is Kenelm Digby relates several surprising in- that antiquaries find so many have been already stances; the moss of a dead man's skull and ransacked. It is also believed that spells were man's fat were the principal ingredients: but it placed over them as a guard, the strongest bewas used to heal, not to kill. Necromancy, as ing to bury a man alive in the cairn, and bid practised by medieval magicians and sorcerers, his ghost protect the deposit against any but respecting which Agrippa's Ocoult Philosophy the proprietor; the ghost would conceal the and Solomon's Key to Magic may be consulted, treasure from all strangers, or only be comis familiar to the Hindus, and the rites used by pelled to disclose it by a human sacrifice being them much the same. Here is a specimen :-Let offered. Compare this with Bertram Risinga sorcerer obtain the corpse of a maiden, and on ham's account of the practice of the old Buc* Sunday night place it at the foot of a Bhuta- caneers : haunted tree on an altar, and repeat a hundred Seek some charnel when at full times, “Om! Hrim ! Hrom! O goddess of Ma- The moon gilds skeleton and skull, layala, who possessest as in a moment! come!
There dig and tomb your precious heap, come!" The corpse will then be inspired by a
And bid the dead the treasure keep, demon and rise up, and if the demon be appeased
Sure guardians they; if fitting spell
Their service to the task compel. with flesh and arrak, will answer all questions
Lacks there such charnel ? Kill a slave put. This is called the Virgin Spell, and came
Or prisoner on the treasure-grave, from Malayala. Be it noted that Mala
And bid his discontented ghost bar is the land par excellence of sorcery and Stalk nightly on his lonely post. magic; the most powerful Bhûtas and demons
Rokeby, Canto II. 18. reside there. As in medieval belief, they can Some speculative physicists make a point of be bought, carried about, and transferred from sleeping north and south, that the magnetic cur. one sorcerer to another. The following story, rents may course freely through their systems; truly mediwval in its wildness, is copied from a but Hindu mothers do not allow their children Madras newspaper of the present year:-"Some to sleep with heads northwards, the reason Bhûtas have human mistresses and concubines, assigned being that after Siva had cut off and even outrage the modesty of their occa- Ganesa's head, it was determined to replace it sional fair worshippers. At Bodinaikan ûr, with the head of the first animal found' sleeping near Pala nei, in the Madura district, a with its head to the north, which happened to certain Chetti bought of a magician a Malabar be an elephant. Again, Hindu mothers prevent demon, for ninety rupees, it is said; but ere a their children from smelling a lime or lemon;