CHAPTER IX.
THE MAGIC ART.
Words of Power called Mantra are committed to memory and used for various purposes. Jugglers utter them to raise a magic veil over the eyes of the spectators, and sorcerers to detect thefts, to induce love, to remove spells to cure possession and to inflict disease or death.
Mantra are uttered to keep away animals. Elephants are frightened by “Om sri jâtâ hârê bhâvatu arahan situ.” A dog takes to its heels when the following is muttered thrice over the hand and stretched towards it “Om namô budungê pâvâdê bat kâpu ballâ kikki kukkâ nam tô situ. Om buddha namas saka situ.”
As a preventive against harmful influences, a thread spun by a virgin, and rubbed with turmeric is charmed over charcoal and resin-smoke and tied round one’s arm, waist or neck, having as many knots as the number of the times the charm has been repeated.
Amulets (yantra) made of five kinds of metal (gold, silver, copper, brass, iron) are similarly worn for avoiding evil and these are either pentacle shaped, crescent shaped or cylindrical enclosing a charmed ola leaf, charmed oil or charmed pills.
To win a girl’s affections the lover has only to rub a charmed vegetable paste over his face and show himself to the girl, or give her to eat a charmed preparation of peacock’s liver, honey and herbs or make her chew a charmed betel leaf, or sprinkle on her some charmed oil, or wear a charmed thread taken from her dress.
To detect a theft, a cocoanut is charmed, attached to a stick and placed where a thief has made his escape, and while the operator holds it he is led along to the thief’s house. Persons suspected of theft are made to stand with bared backs round an ash plantain tree and as it is struck with a charmed creeper, the culprit gets an ashy streak on his back. They are also asked to touch a charmed fowl in turn and the fowl begins to crow as soon as the thief touches its body. The names of the suspected persons are sometimes written on slips of paper and placed on the ground with a cowrie shell opposite each slip, and as soon as the mantra is uttered the shell opposite the thief’s name begins to move.
Charmed branches are hung up by hunters and wayfarers near dangerous spots. If charmed slaked lime be secretly rubbed on the lintel of a man’s house before he starts out shooting, he will not kill any bird, and if rubbed on the threshold he will not kill any fourfooted animal.