________________
272
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTORER, 1906.
The picture of a woman to be captivated, consisting of her face, throat, breast, navel and her generative organ, together with her peculiar ornaments and dress, shall be drawn with rochunu (a bright yellow pigment prepared from the urine or bile of a cow) in a socluded place. The picture of ankusa (a hook used to drive an elephant), combined with the symbol of sacred knowledge and the name of the beloved, is to be attached. The symbol of Madana (Kama = a stanight line between two dots) is to be written in all the joints of the pictorial forin.......... (See Plate VI.) The other passage rups as follows:
लिखित्वा विपुलं चक्रं तन्मध्ये प्रतिमा यदि ।। नाम्ना लिखति संयुक्तां क्वलन्ती चिन्तयेत्तत । शसयोजनमात्रस्था स्वदुश्वापिच या भवेत् । भवलज्जाविनिर्मुला सान्यायाति. विमोहिता।
P. 108, Nityashodasikdrnava: • Having written in the centre of a large circle the picture of a woman, together with her name, one has to think of her as langaishing with the effects of love. However great may be the distance, she will run to the lover, abandoning all her fear and shame.'
Then follows the commentary on this passage, which clearly manifests the force of conservative spirit with which time-honoured customs and doctrines, however crude and absurd, were regarded as inviolable. It was likely that, owing to the omission to mention the particular writing ingredient in the above passage, worshippers might use other than traditional materials. With a view to avoid so profane a practice, the commentator kindly took the trouble to supply the omission. He says:
"The omission to mention the name of the particular writing ingredient in the above text is due to the consideration on the part of the author that the natura of the material can be easily understood by reference to the rales laid down in similar contexts in other authoritative Tantric texts. The Dakshinamûrtisahitd, for example, lays down :
‘कृत्वा सिन्दूररजसा चक्रं तत्र विभावयेत्।' • Having drawn the circle with red lead, the worshipper shall contemplate on it.'
This kind of decision by reference to outside authority is quite in accordance with the theory of similar contexts' propounded by the Mimânsakas (Vedic commentators) with regard to similar rituals.
This insistence on adhering to long-continued customs regarding writing materials is oqually perceptible regarding the form of pictures. The enumeration made in the first passage of such important members as forehead,' neck,' heart, navel' and generative organ' recalls the simple picture of Kami-kala in the Tripuropanishad, while it admits of no doubt that witchcraft, prehistoric in its origin, Athurvanic in its infancy, and Tantric in its youth, old age and decay, has undergone only such modifications as misinterpretations and misunderstandings of past traditions rendered possible. It must necessarily follow that the procera of drawing, with Cow's bile or blood, the rudimentary outlines of vietims, essential to the satisfactory performance of sorcery, is far anterior to the art of painting and coeval with, and perhaps earlier than, the Atharva-Veda. Regarding sorcery itself, Prof. Macdonell observes as follows:10
"All India is pervaded by sorcery from the R.-V. (7, 104; 10, 84 ; 10, 128, 155) through the Yajush literature, and curiously enough also the Upanishads (Br. Ar. 6, 4, 12) through the
