Most Ancient Aryan Society

Author(s): Ram Chandra Jain
Publisher: Institute of Bharatalogical Research Sriganganagar Rajasthan

Page 289

( 262 ) these acts transferred the qualities of the dead or not to the eaters; perhaps it did not ; but it provided a great stimulus to the Gaņa members who positively believed in the efficacy of this art. This stimulus goaded them strongly to action and that action gave them success. Whenever they failed, they believed that the Chhanda might not have been correctly repeated; as in the case of transferring energies of Nature to Indra and Vộtra by repeating wrong Chhandas ; and that gave them sufficient consolation in their defeat. Chhanda vulgarity was ritualised later, but in its earliest stages, the art of Chhanda recitation or Chhandopathy, was an efficacious method, in the social process, in bringing total social accord and in providing strongest stimulant of action for achieving material objects.
Chhandopathy is the parent of all magic; white, black or natural; homeopathic or contagious. The eminent Chhandopathy:
scholar J. G. Frazer in his monumental work The parent of The Golden Bough' has very clearly enunciaMagic
agric t ed the principles and practices of magic. Magic is based on two principles. One, that like produces like and second, that Things which livve once been in contact with each other are always in contact. The first is the law of Similarity and the second is the law of Contagion. Charms based on the law of similarity be called Homeopathic Magic. Charms based on the Law of contagion may be called contagious Magic. Magic is based on the misapplications of the association of ideas hence it is a spurious science and a bastard art.29
Though Frazer has not gone into the historical causes of the origin of Magic, he has recorded many interesting data about Magic. He gives several instances of savage beliefs. Savage is unadle to discriminate between words and things. He fancies that a link between a name