I am informed that the prayer occurs also in many other books with modifications, and that when it is used in connection with ཁྲུས་ or ‘lustration’ rites the closing words after གྲགས་ are changed into སྐུ་, ‘we baptise thee.’
To p. 17. S. Ch. D., p. 490 b, s.v. གཉན་ mentions a medicinal root used against the plague, called ལྕགས་ (without zhabs-kyu), but transcribed lcags kyu.
To p. 23. Huth, Hor chos byuṅ, trs., p.117, renders [[77]]མཁའ་ as ḍāka, also on p. 118 (see note 4). On p. 231 (see note 1) he suggests that མཁའ་ should be understood as ḍākinī = མཁའ་, not as Sk. ḍāka. The dge rgan understands all these three passages as referring to (female) ḍākinīs. Though according to Grünwedel (‘Mythologie,’ p. 153) in Sk. mythology a male ḍāka exists (a Tantra deity), in Tibet the མཁའ་ is always feminine, and a male species or individual does not exist according to my informants. This statement needs testing of course. Grünwedel (loc. cit.) thinks that these female ḍākinīs are original Tibetan spirits or goddesses. The female ཡེ་’s are mentioned indifferently with or without the final མ་. Macdonell in his Sk. Dict. only mentions the feminine form of the word. In the ritual book གཅོད་ “The six cut off pieces” (i.e. chapters, divisions, into which the description of the torma offering is divided) we find the apostrophe: ཀྱེ་, “O, wisdom fairy, supernatural (= not-human) mother,” so defining the sex. In Tibetan the form མཁའ་ must accordingly not be understood as a masculine form of མཁའ་, but as its abbreviated form only. This without prejudice to the question whether in special Tantric texts a male god Ḍāka, མཁའ་, does occur.
S. Ch. D. has for མཁའ་ an entry giving the meanings ‘god, bird, arrow.’ Here the word has a poetical or metaphorical meaning based on its etymology, ‘sky-goer’, but no mythological value. He adds under མཁའ་ ‘a class, mainly of female spirits.’ But the form in མ་ cannot be masculine. In Tibet there is a class of people called ཆོས་, both male and female, whose name may be translated as oracles, [[78]]shamans or mediums. They are deemed to be obsessed by ཆོས་’s who speak through them whilst they themselves are in a state of trance or obsession. Their name is ཆོས་ in Lhasa and other greater towns, and amongst the more educated; but the country-people and the lower orders have a special name for these mediums if they are women and call them རྣལ་ or མཁའ་. In Sikkhim the word མཁའ་ is general in this sense. In Sikkhim the designation for a male medium of this sort is དཔའ་ and not ཆོས་ as in Tibet.
Whilst investigating the question of Khandomas from the standpoint of colloquial Tibetan I stumbled unexpectedly on the following interesting piece of information, throwing a vivid sidelight on some current beliefs and practices of modern Tibet.
The abbot of the Saskya monastery is held to be the reincarnation of Padmasambhava. As the latter was the great ‘binder,’ that is subduer, of all spirits, witches, goblins and other creatures of that ilk, the Saskya abbot has in some way become the official head and master of all Tibetan witches. Belief in witches is rife all over Tibet, and any woman is liable to be declared one. The process is very simple. If a great Lama receives obeisance from the multitude he presents the devotees in return with a ‘protection-knot’ (སྲུང་), a narrow strip of cloth which he puts round their necks. He ties a knot in it muttering some mantram over it, hence the name. Ordinary laymen receive a white strip, tapas or those who have their hair cut short (probably because they look like tapas) get a yellow or red strip, but if a woman approaches whom the Lama by his magic knowledge recognizes as a witch, she receives a black strip. From that moment she is irrevocably a witch and no protestation can help her out of the situation. In the Saskya monastery an annual feast or ceremony is celebrated in which all witches must appear personally, and the magic then displayed is so tremendously powerful that all women who are secretly endowed with the powers of witchcraft without the people knowing it, are irresistibly compelled to attend the meeting. They simply cannot help it, and so stories are told of witches working in the fields, milking cows, or otherwise engaged, being drawn away from their work and appearing in the assembly with their milk-pail, or spindle, or [[79]]whatever utensil they were using at the time at any work, when they were forced to quit it and to come to Saskya. In the meeting they are then officially proclaimed witches and forced to pledge allegiance and obedience to the Saskya monastery and its head. Then the profitable and practical side of the transaction becomes manifest, for henceforth they have to pay an annual, heavy witch-tax, and in cases known to Karma himself, who came across them when living in Tibet, this tax amounted to one རྡོ་ (see Bell, p. 104) or about Rs. 120 a year. On the other hand they are now protected by the authority of the monastery as long as they pay the tax, though they have to pledge themselves not to use their powers for evil. Then they receive the official title of ས་, though they are known to the people as འབའ་, witch. But this latter word is a term of abuse or contempt. The meaning of the two terms, however, is the same. The entries in the dicts. s.v. འབའ་ and པོ་ (and other spellings) need proper testing in the light of the above. These witches are supposed not to live up to a great age but to die young, because the monastery calls them out of life to become protecting spirits of the monastery in the invisible spheres. When a bamo dies, her daughter, if she has any, inherits the office or quality of the mother. These bamos, during life, follow the ordinary occupations of women: buying, selling, working or marrying, and their bamo-hood seems to be no drawback, in itself, to their matrimonial prospects. I heard of the case of a bamo who was the wife of a very wealthy man. But the tax, far in excess of any levied on ordinary people, must be regularly paid. If the bamo does not pay her tax, the monastery calls her soul and she dies. In the gompa for every accredited འབའ་ there is a སོབ་ or stuffed effigy, puppet, of which I have not been able to get a full description. Probably a stuffed doll or body, with a mask and garment, perhaps only a stick to hold the mask and garment up, like in a puppet-show. Each such puppet becomes the dwelling-place of the soul of a dead bamo when she dies, and in order to see to it that after death she may not do harm whilst roaming about, the puppet is bound in chains. Horrible to say, however, sometimes these chains are found broken by the guardians, and this is a sure sign that the imprisoned soul has escaped from the puppet [[80]]which was its dwelling-place and that it may have started on a pilgrimage of evil works. As soon as it is found that such an imprisoned witch-soul has escaped, solemn notice is at once sent out to all Tibet to the effect that a bamo-soul has broken loose from Saskya, and the various local Lamas all through the country warn their flocks that a bamo is at large and enjoin them to be careful not to fall a victim to the wandering witch. So, for instance, they are told not to go about alone after dark, not to entertain strangers, and the like, for the bamo may assume any disguise, and any man may fall a prey to the snares of a beautiful strange woman, as any woman might be allured by an unknown man. The late Lama Sherabgyamtsho in Ghoom, whose name is so well known to all students of Tibetan, used very often to make solemn announcements of this nature and warn the Ghoom people that a bamo had escaped from Saskya.
A most fitting ending to this story is perhaps to be made by quoting the old Buddhist formula “Thus I have heard,” but there is no doubt that the word མཁའ་ acquires an interesting new meaning through this curious tale.
There is a belief prevalent in Tibet that in every woman a touch of bamo-hood is latent (some philosophers, also outside Tibet, seem to think the same!), but in the night of the 29th day of the twelfth Tibetan month, this seed of evil will manifest most fully. The male Tibetans, however, seem not to take any precautions or perform any rites to counteract the sinister influence of this date. Evidently it is a male Tibetan who first set up this theory, and it might be the same fellow who is the author of the following proverb which bears on our subject and on the words we are dealing with. It runs:
སྐྱེས་
ཁྱོ་འབའ་གཅིག་