8 SIDI, SIAMANG, ADUNADA. 



"balances sakti " gifted with supernatural attributes : " and that 

 this is apposite and leads us to its true meaning is confirmed by a 

 phrase very common in various forms in Malay charms, e.g. Skeat, 

 page 617 (CIX) and 627 (CXLVII) and 643 (CCVIII) :— 



Sidik Guru, sidik-lah aku 



Dengan berkat, ' La ilaha illa'llah-, 



Muhammad Rasulullah/ 

 or to quote from MS. charm-books in my possession, which I hope 

 some day to print and edit, — 



Sah sidi pengajaran guru, 



Sidi mustajab ka-pada aku, 



Berkat, 'La ilaha, etc. 

 The first line occurs in three different charms : for the second 

 a variant is Sah sidi mustajab, etc. All my charms read sidi. 

 Now a common variant of these the concluding lines of a charm 



is (Skeat, page 627, CXLIII) 



Kabul Guru, kabul aku 

 Dengan berkat, 'La ilaha 



or page 603, LX 



Kabul-lali doa guru aku 

 Kabul ka-pada aku. 



Clearly sah, mustajab and kabul are synonyms for sidi. In 

 a line in the " Ht. Anggun Che Tunggal " page 1, it balances ber- 

 kat : — Berkat daulat, bersidi sakti. (I remember asking Pawang 

 Ana if he did not mean saidi and his denying it but being unable 

 to explain sidi.) Sidi must be the Sanskrit siddhi (sidh-ti) u ac- 

 complishment, fulfilment, success, the fruit of ascetic austerities, 

 the acquisition of supernatural power by magic : " with compounds 

 maha-siddlii " magic power," and sadhya-siddhi " completion, estab- 

 lishing what is to be proved." (Benfey's Sanskrit-English Dic- 

 tionary.) We can then turn from the phrase 



Berkat sidi terjali sendiri 

 to the Sanskrit 



Navastuno vastusiddhih 



' From nothing nothing is derived.' 

 " Every Tantra," wrote Monier — Williams in his book on 

 Hinduism, " ought, like a Purana, to treat of five subjects, — 

 1. The Creation'; 2. The Destruction of the World; 3. The wor- 

 ship of the gods; 4. The attainment of all subjects, especially of 8 

 superhuman powers (siddhi) ; 5. The four modes of union with 

 the Supreme Spirit. Very few conform even partially to this rule. 

 Most of them are mere hand-books for the use of practisers of 

 witchcraft. . . .Whole Tantras teach nothing but what may be called 

 the science of employing unmeaning sounds for acquiring magical 

 powers over friends and for destroying enemies and rivals. Some 

 give collections of spells suitable for making people enamoured, for 

 destroying sight, for producing and preventing diseases, for injur- 

 ing crops, for alchemy /' 



Jour. Straits Branch 



