4 BLOOMFIELD— ON THE ART OF 



science, and lives with all those ladies, but with his real body he 

 lived principally with his best beloved Mahallika, the daughter of 

 the Asura Prahlada. Disappearance; making one's self small ("so 

 small as to creep into a lotus-stalk ")^° ; floating in or flying through 

 the air^\ with or without a chariot ; remembrance of former births^- ; 

 doing as one wills are commonplaces of fiction to the point of tire- 

 some cliche. They are used to cut the Gordian knot, or as sub- 

 stitutes for the deus ex machina, when convenience calls for them 

 in the least degree. 



No doubt many or most of these fairy-tales were known to 

 folk-lore before Yoga philosophy systematized them, and many more 

 are current in fiction which the Yoga does not take note of at all. 

 The gods could always do as they pleased, to begin with. Yoga or 

 no Yoga. There is an especial class of semi-divine persons, the 

 so-called Vidyadharas, or " Holders of Magic Science," who need 

 no instruction in Yoga and yet possess every imaginable power. 

 They are magicians congenitally, habitually fly in the air, and are 

 therefore also known by the name of "Air-goers" (khecara, or 

 vihaga). In a vaguer way almost any one at all may own magic 

 science in fiction. The fairy-tale is interested more in the indi- 

 vidual items of magic as self-existent real properties of its technique 

 than in their causes or their motivation. But the influence of the 

 Yoga appears in this way : as a rule, each magic trick is dignified 

 by the name of vidya, "science" or "art" ("stunt," as we might 

 say). These vidyas are in the first place the property by divine 

 right of the above-mentioned Vidyadharas, but they may also be 

 acquired, or called into service by mortals. 



Quite frequently the vidyas are personified and cited like famil- 

 iar spirits, or good fairies. ^^ They appear in profusion with 

 pedantic descriptive names. Thus there is the Vidya called Pra- 



10 Maliabh. 12. 343. 42. 



11 Kathas. 18. 184; 20. 105, 141; 25. 262; 38. 153; 59. 106; Pargvanatha 

 Caritra 2. 556; Kathakoga, pp. 49, 58; Prabandhacintamani, pp. 137, 150, 195 

 (in Tawney's Translation). 



1- Mahabh. 13. 29. 11 ; 18. 4. 23-37, and on every other page of fiction. 

 13 In Vikrama-Carita the eiglit siddhis (above, p. 2) are personified as 

 virgins; see Welier, Indische Studien, XV. 388. 



