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VII, 116. COMMENTARY.
567
being himself cold and moist. I would also draw attention to RV. X, 166, 5, where in the course of a hostile charm occurs the expression, a vo murdhấnam akramîm, adhaspadãn ma úd vadata mandükå ivos dakát, 'I have stepped upon your head; from under my feet do ye speak up to me like frogs from the water 1.' A touch of this idea also is perhaps worked up symbolically in the present practice, and even more clearly in the related performance at Kaus.48, 40.
The combination of the colours blue and red is associated everywhere with hostile witchcraft. In RV. X,85, 28=AV. XIV, 1, 26 (cf. Sankh. Grih. I, 12, 8; Âpast. Grih. 1, 5, 23) the bridal garment polluted during the consummation is spoken of as, nilalohitam bhavati kritya - saktír vy ágyate,
blue and black it is; the sorcery, the inherent (evil) ?, is driven out.' In AV. IV, 17,4 (see our note on that stanza) a hostile charm is made in a blue-red vessel, and red and blue threads are spread out against enemies in AV. VIII, 8, 24 (cf. Kaus. 16, 20). This sinister employment of red and blue renders it unlikely that the use of the same colours in German wedding-practices is in any way to be connected with the Hindu conception; see Weber, Indische Studien, V, 308, note 4; Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell nach dem Åpastambîya-Grihyasútra (Imperial Academy of Vienna, vol. xl), p. 67; Hillebrandt, Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (1894-95), I, 39 ff. Why, now, is blue and red fit for Hindu sorcery practices ? Is nilalohita night and day?
On the other hand it seems difficult to dissociate from the present practice the Bohemian frog-charm which Grohmann, 1.c., reports as a cure against fever: 'In Bohemia the practice is to cure chills and fever (kaltes fieber) by catching a green frog at the time of the morning dews on the day preceding that of St. George. This is sewn into a bag which is hung about the neck of the patient without his
i Cf. the Sätra 26, 20 in connection with the jaundice cure, vadata (sc. sakunîn) upasthâpayati, and Kesava's comment thereon.
. For asaktí, see Ludwig's excellent remark, Der Rigveda, vol. v, p. 398.
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