WITCHCRAFT AMONG THE HINDUS. 



BY H. W. MAGOUN. 



The mysterious always arouses curiosity, and the mysterious 

 is no small element in magical practices. Witchcraft has never 

 lacked its devotees. Its stronghold has always been among the 

 ignorant and superstitious; but men of learning, and even emi- 

 nence, for their time, have firmly believed in its reality, and have 

 felt it a duty to search out and punish those who had dealings 

 with the evil one. Even at the present time, in some parts of 

 the world, people of intelligence still cling to a belief in the 

 existence and power of witchcraft; its literature still flourishes 

 among them, and its teachings are accepted as containing things 

 which are true and worthy of respect. 



While at the Johns Hopkins University, three MSS. were 

 put into my hands which contained a practice called the A s u r i- 

 K a 1 p a h. The MSS. all belonged to the A t h a r v a-V e d a 

 and were known as parigistas, or supplementary writings^ 

 Their contents were as yet unknown. Two of the MSS. con- 

 tained each a very brief outline of a rite which began with a 

 spell; the third contained three versions of the same thing, one 

 of them being much fuller than any of the others and partaking 

 of the nature of a commentary. This MS. was really the key 

 to the entire practice; but it presented enormous difficulties at 

 the start, for the writing was something astonishing. Diligent 

 comparisons of similar passages gradually established the sense 

 of the greater part of the document, and an outline of it will be 

 given below. The results of my work were published in the 

 American Journal of Philology for J uly, 1889, 

 under the title, The Asuri-Kalpa; a Witchcraft Prac- 



