Cure of Snake-bite.
In Hoshangâbâd there were once two brothers, Râjawa and Soral; the ghost of the former cures snake-bite, and that of the latter cattle murrain. The moment a man is bitten, he must tie a string or a strip of his dress and fasten it round his neck, crying, “Mercy! O God Râjawa!” To call on Ghori Bâdshâh, the Delhi Emperor, who conquered the country, or Râmjî Dâs Bâba will do as well. At the same time he makes a vow to give so much to the god if he recovers. When he gets home they use various tests to ascertain if the poison is in him still. They take him in and out over the threshold, and light a lamp before him, acts which are supposed to have the effect of developing latent poison. They then give him salt and leaves of the bitter Nîm tree. If he can take them he is safe. These are all, as we have already seen, scarers of evil spirits, in this case the snake demon. If he cannot take them, the whole village goes out and cries to Râjawa Deo until he recovers. No one (Sir C. A. Elliott’s informant told him) had been ever known to die of a snake-bite after this treatment. But the god has no power over the dreaded Biscobra, which takes its name from the Hindi Bishkhâpra, Sanskrit Vishakharpara, or “poison-headed,” which is said to be so deadly that its very breath is venomous, one of the numerous popular delusions out of which it is hopeless to argue the rustic. The bitten man must not untie the string round his neck till the day when he goes to offer what he vows, which should be, at latest, on the next Dasahra; but if he attempts to cheat the god by offering ever so little less than he promised, he will die on the spot in agonies.[136]
All through Upper India the stock remedy for snake-bite is the exorcism of the Ojha or sorcerer, a performance known as Jhâr Phûnk, consisting of a series of passes, massage, and incantations, which are supposed to disperse the venom. Many, too, have faith in the so-called “Snake stone,” which seems to be usually a piece of bone soaked in blood and repeatedly baked. This is supposed to have absorbent properties and to draw the venom out of the wound. It probably works by faith, and is as effective as the Achates or Agate of which Pliny writes: “People are persuaded that it availeth much against the venomous spiders and scorpions, which property I could very well believe to be in the Sicilian Agate, for that so soon as serpents come within the air and breath of the said province of Sicily, as venomous as they be otherwise, they die thereupon.”[137]