19 
Pamban at the end of June ‘torr to try their skill: 
Several were Roman Catholics, one a Hindu, and one a 
Muhammadan. They did their best, exorcised the 
contrary spirits that controlled the winds but to no 
effect, and after a reasonable delay to give the charms 
time to act, if act they would, the crews of the canoes 
chased away the discredited wizards with ignominy and 
insults. Soon after their return home I obtained an 
ola inscribed on both sides which I have every reason 
to believe had belonged to one of the five—a Roman 
Catholic Parawa, who practises as a native doctor. 
Probably the mantrams inscribed upon the two surfaces 
were the very ones used fruitlessly at Pamban. The 
os are in Tamil and each is prefixed by the Ganesha 
sign(a@). Both are of Hindu origin, Hindu gods being 
invoked, but whereas in the one, the object i is to still the 
winds, the other is a recipe for ensuring a change in the 
coastal current. 
The spell for the winds reads thus :—‘“Let neither 
wind nor storm continue; let a calm reign over the 
world. Let neither force nor cajolery prevail against us 
and by the God who made us, let nothing hinder us. 
Let neither stones nor wrath, neither force nor arrows 
prove hurtful to us. And let the tongue of the man who 
speaks against us be cut into pieces; if there be any 
Obstacles let them! be overcome. And by the lord 
Siva that created usall, let there be nothing to prevent 
us.” 
The formula to ensure a change in the current is 
short and most explicit ; it reads ‘‘ With the help of the 
power of Siva and his consort, with the help of bis grace, 
of his strength and of his priests, (I conjure you) Oh 
Supsamanian,icora of EBarth,"Oh, Hanuman, and Oh 
Arjuna, supreme Lord, come, with a current from the 
south towards the shore” (z.e. to the northward). 
The calls made upon Hindu gods in spells used at 
the present day by Roman Catholic Parawas probably 
indicates great antiquity and may mark them as survi- 
vals from that time prior to the Portuguese arrival when, 
according to Marco Polo, the divers of Kayal had to 
“pay those men who charm the ereat fishes to prevent 
them from injuring the divers while engaged in seeking 
pearls under water, one-twentieth part of all that they 
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