178 THE LATE REV. P. DEHON ON 



that a man has attained the apogee of his art when, after a three hours' jharna, he has 

 caused his stone to lose ten pice in weight. These things at first sight appear to 

 us impossible, but we are forced to believe them when, after taking all our precautions 

 not to be cheated or influenced by hypnotism, we see them with our own eyes. To them, 

 however, faith is not so difficult. All that is necessary is to find the proper mantra. Give 

 a nagmotia the proper mantra, and he will set to work at once and begin his jharna to 

 bring down the sun, the moon and the stars. Like the old Romans he would say : — 



" Carmina vel coelo possunt deducere lunam guru." 



After passing their examination to the satisfaction of the guru they get their 

 diploma. The examination takes place always on a Sunday. They all go together to 

 the nearest river, and the guru chooses a shallow place where the water is just trickling 

 over the land. There he makes as many furrows as there are successful candidates. 

 Then they stand in two rows, every one over a furrow with the guru in the middle. 

 Whilst the pupils atre singing together a song, in which they extol their power over that 

 of the guru, the latter sprinkles each one with water taken, successively, from the furrow- 

 in which he stands, his position being determined according to the order of merit. After 

 this they return to the school, where a he-goat is sacrificed to the chief gurus and 

 deotas. The guru then calls his wife ; and these two sit face to face on the floor with their 

 legs stretched on the ground. Each pupil in turn, in the order of passing the exami- 

 nation, comes and sits on the lap of the guru, who dips his finger in the blood of the 

 offering and makes with it a big line on the forehead of the pupil. From the lap of 

 the guru he passes to the lap of the guruwain who does the same. From this time 

 they can practice their art. It is a great feast in the village when the pupils receive their 

 diplomas, and it is the guru who takes them home one by one. 



When a man has been bitten by a snake the nagmotia is called, and the first thing 

 done is to ascertain what kind of snake has caused the injury. To do this he has two 

 means. If the snake is close to the house, or if the people have seen him going into a 

 hole, he gets him out by singing his incantations or blowing his nagdan. When the man 

 has been bitten in the fields, or far from his house, the nagmotia discovers him through the 

 blade of grass while proceeding with the jharna. As the ojha calls all the Shuts by 

 their names so the nagmotia calls all the snakes by their names, and when he pronounces 

 the right name, he says that he feels something like an electric shock in his hand. Then 

 he applies the particular medicine to the wound and gives his patient some roots to chew. 

 In some cases he fills his mouth with three different kinds of medicinal herbs, applies his 

 lips to the wound and sucks up the blood which he spits out. But this is rare ; for, 

 whether due to the effect of the medicine he keeps in his mouth or to the effect of the 

 poison, the result is that he loses his teeth. 



After these preliminaries the real jharna is begun — an invocation to aUthe^^s and 

 dcvtas of the craft — and then follow his 7?iantras and incantations. After some time he 

 asks the man how far the poison has gone up. If the man has been bitten in the foot or 

 leg, and the poison has reached the trunk, he brings it down to the thigh where he makes 

 a ligature ; from the thigh he brings it to the knee, to the ankle and the big toe, each 



