Witchcraft Among the Hindus. 11 



in the practice of medicine and were muttered over the patient 

 while certain rites were performed with such materials as mud, 

 gravel, curds, sour-milk, melted butter, and cow-dung. As Sir 

 Alfred Lyall puts it, " We talk of a dose acting ' like a charm,' 

 while the Hindu employs a charm to act like a dose." Brah- 

 mans were forbidden to practice medicine, unless compelled by 

 necessity, however, so that even they recognized the uncanny 

 element in it. 



The faith in .spells finally became so great that it was be- 

 lieved that even the gods must heed them when properly used. 

 In the Laws of M a n u, however, which were cited above, 

 occurs the statement that witchcraft or abhicara practices 

 are secondary crimes; so that, while their outward forms, to our 

 eyes at least, are so near alike that it is almost impossible to 

 distinguish between them, the Hindus recognized a clear and 

 sharp difference in the two. When the rites are used for harm, 

 independent of, or in spite of, the gods, the practitioner is an 

 enemy of the gods and a worker of black magic. Anything 

 wrong in the community lies at his door and he must be pun- 

 ished, for he is destroying the power of the Brahmans' prayers 

 by his arts. 



If two sticks, with the help of a- few spells would produce 

 fire, the inference was that two knives crossed on a threshold or 

 a red rag put over a door must harm the occupant of the house 

 when imprecations were added. If the strange signs caused 

 the person to tremble or turn pale, the concealed sorcerer was 

 convinced that his intended victim was feeling his power and he 

 believed in his charms accordingly. 



The religious Hindus, while accepting these things as true, 

 felt bound to propitiate their gods by an austerity painful to 

 think of; but this asceticism was supposed to compel the gods 

 to reward them nolens vole ns, so that the difference looks 

 small to us in point of fact. The theosophic speculations of this 

 class reached their culminating point in the teaching of the 

 Vedantas which hold that there is one ultimate and only god, 



