Conception is also favoured by passing under the bier or palanquin holding the corpse of an ascetic or holy man while it is being carried to the cemetery.[77] Some believe that such an ascetic or saint must be a follower of the Jain faith.[78] Others maintain that the desired end can be secured only by wearing round the elbows the grains of rice or coins offered to the bier of a saint on its way to the cemetery.[79]
Other methods practised for the cure of barrenness are as follows:
The barren woman cuts off a lock of the hair of a child-bearing woman and keeps it in her custody.[80]
Some women collect the dust trodden on by a child-bearing woman in an earthen pot and eat it every day till it is exhausted.[80]
Some throw grains of adad (Phaseolus mungo) over the bed of a woman in confinement.[81]
Others daub their foreheads with the blood emitted by a woman in menses.[80]
There are some who pour water in a circle at the village gate on a Sunday or Tuesday, and when in period, partake of the powder of mindhal mixed with lāpsi (coarse wheat flour fried in ghi and sweetened with molasses or sugar) seated on the threshold of the house.[82]
Many wear round their necks leaves called bhojapatras on which the mystical figure given below is drawn by an exorcist.
Pieces of paper on which the following jantra is written by an ascetic, woven in a string made of five kinds of silk, are also worn round the elbows:—