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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

Potent Words, Potent Objects: "Doing

Mantras" in Assamese Everyday Life

presented by

Vandana Goswami

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph .D . degree in Anthropology

 

 

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POTENT WORDS, POTENT OBJECTS: "DOING MANTRAS" IN ASSAMESE
EVERYDAY LIFE

BY

Vandana Goswami

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Anthropology

1 994

ABSTRACT

POTENT WORDS, POTENT OBJECTS: "DOING MANTRAS" IN ASSAMESE
EVERYDAY LIFE

BY

Vandana Goswami

This dissertation, based on field research in India,
examines the cultural category of "doing mantras" in the
north-eastern state of Assam. Mantras are configurations of
specific syllables, words and sound units that are seen to
have innate power. They are a part and parcel of Hindu
ritual, and are most commonly seen and studied in a
religious context. "Doing mantras" refers to practices in
which its religious and ritual dimension is recontextualized
and used to interpret and resolve everyday situations and
problems like illness, afflictions and dilemmas. The
practice is played out as interactions between practitioners
and clients and often proceeds along a sequence of
divination, diagnosis and remedy. Using Sherry Ortner’s
conceptualization of cultural schemas, the study analyzes
this practice by focusing on its nature, its internal logic
and its influence in dictating actor’s thoughts and actions.
By examining illness and health as one aspect of misfortune,
affliction and the experience of suffering, the study gets
away from a common assumption in medical anthropology that
health and illness can be objectified into isolable

entities. Instead, it analyses the practice of mantras as a

' culturally typical way of interpreting and resolving diverse
situations in a similar way, that is, in terms of mantras.
It thus addresses the need seen by some scholars for medical
anthropologists to address broader issues of social theory.
Besides helping in understanding some of the assumptions
about reality held by actors, the interactions also provide
a window into particular culturally important concerns and
sources of distress that emerge from the socio-cultural

setting.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Funding for this research was provided by The American
Institute of Indian Studies, and at the outset, I thank them
for their generous support. I also extend my gratitude to
all my informants without whose cooperation this research
would not have been possible.

I am indebted to Dr. Judy Pugh, the Chairperson of my
PhD Guidance committee, for her constant support and
guidance. Our long conversations opened up new avenues of
ideas for me. Her friendship kept me away from the bouts of
depression which writing a dissertation and being away from
my family often threatened to bring about. My other
committee members, Dr. Loudell Snow, Dr. Charles Morrison,
and Dr. Harry Raulet were always there for me whenever I
needed advice and direction. I thank Dr. Loudell Snow for
her continuous reassurances that writing and defending a
dissertation in two semesters was not an impossible
endeavor, and that I could do it. The encouragement of my
committee and their confidence in me was a constant
motivation in writing this dissertation.

I thank Laura Cahue, Eufracio Abaya and other

colleagues who acted as my sounding board while getting this

iv

dissertation in shape. Special thanks go to Barbara Knuth,
Mary Ann Keilen and Gail Barricklow from the Department of
Anthropology for all their help both during the writing
stage as well as during the preparation of the final draft.
My family has been an immense source of support
throughout the process of fieldwork and analysis. My
father, Barada Sarma spent countless hours locating, reading
and translating Assamese texts, as well as holding scholarly
discussions with me. These discussions have been of utmost
help to my writing. I thank him for all his efforts. Last
but not the least, I am indebted to my husband Deepangkar
Goswami for enduring months of separation without any
complaints --- first during my fieldwork and then again when
I came back to America to write and defend my dissertation
while he kept the home fires burning in India. This
dissertation would never have come about without his
nagging, coaxing and finally even threatening me to finish
it. My heartfelt thanks to him for keeping his own life on

hold while I pursued my studies.

LIST OF

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

LIST OF

FIGURES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

......................................... vi i
THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS ................. l
MANTRAS IN GENERAL ....................... 2 9
THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SETTING ................. 5 1
THE PRACTITIONERS ........................ 8 4
THE PRACTICE ............................. 124
THE CLIENTS .............................. l 73
CONCLUS I ON ............................... 2 1 5

REFERENCES ...................................... 226

vi

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

LIST OF FIGURES

CULTURAL LOGIC OF "DOING MANTRAS" ...... l7
CULTURAL SCHEMAS OF THE PRACTICE

OF MANTRAS ............................. 17
MAP OF INDIA ........................... 52

vii

CHAPTER 1

THEORETICAL ORIENTATIONS

This dissertation addresses the growing concern among
some medical anthropologists over the strong emphasis of a
biomedical orientation in some spheres of medical
anthropology, and the widespread assumption that the
biomedical model, being "scientific", is a "natural",
superior, and universally applicable model. This bias has
resulted in the role of medical anthropologists as mediators
to aid in the promotion of health (in its biomedical
conceptualization) worldwide. Drawing analogies between the
current relation of anthropology to medicine, and the
history of anthropology’s relations to European colonialism,
Nancy Scheper-Hughes [1990] sees anthropologists as being
mediators since colonial times, and medical anthropology as
an extension of that mediating role. Reacting against
anthropologists as "culture-brokers", she asserts that just
as the colonial anthropologists took for granted the
inevitability of the colonial enterprise, similarly, present
day medical anthropologists do not question "the
inevitability (nor the technological superiority) of the
whole biomedical health enterprise itself" [Scheper-Hughes
1990].

The "culture-broker" role can be especially seen in the

2
work of clinically applied medical anthropologists who are
engaged in using anthropological knowledge to meet the needs
of health practitioners [Scheper-Hughes 1990]. For example,
Kleinman, Eisenberg and Good [1978] argue for the need for a
clinical social science. Their general assumption is that
there is a difference between the illness models of health
practitioners and patients. Their main concern is to
translate cultural concepts brought in by patients into
strategies that can be directly applied by clinicians to
patient care. This can be accomplished, according to them,
by teaching clinicians to elicit the patient’s model, and
then formulate and communicate the doctor’s model in terms
that the patient can understand. Once the doctor elicits
the patient’s model, he or she can then attempt to educate
the patient if it is felt that the patient’s model will
interfere with appropriate treatment and care. Even though
these anthropologists talk of negotiations of shared models
between doctors and patients, their underlying assumption is
the superiority of the clinician’s biomedical model in the
treatment of disease.

The emphasis of medical anthropology on medical systems
and medical pluralism can be seen as a response to the
structural organization of biomedicine. Interest in "non—
western medical systems" developed in terms of a contrast
with "western medical system". Anthropologists thus viewed

non-western medical systems in terms of the institutional

3
frameworks of the western medical system, emphasizing the
structure of the beliefs, practices, roles and relationships
in a health and illness—related setting.

One of the common threads running through the work of
most medical anthropologists is the emphasis on health and
illness. Health and illness become objectified into
isolable entities. Worsley [1982] argues that treating
bodily ills takes place in any culture within a
"metamedical" framework of thought. The biomechanistic
model is only one such framework, and is by no means
universal. Nichter [1991:1381 similarly views health as
only one aspect of well-being. He argues for the need to
ground ethnomedical studies in the study of everyday life,
and in perceptions of the normal and natural, the desirable
and the feared, and in the embodied knowledge of common
sense. A similar issue is raised by Scheper-Hughes [1990],
who is dissatisfied with the tendency in medical
anthropology to reduce the complexity and richness of
anthropological knowledge to "a few reified and ‘practical’
concepts, (such as lay explanatory models, the disease-
illness dichotomy, somatization)" [Scheper-Hughes 1990].
The result, for her, is "not only the reification of
sickness and human suffering as these are understood by
cultural anthropologists, but also the reification of
medical anthropology itself" [Scheper-Hughes 1990]. Other

anthropologists have also questioned the fundamental

4
assumptions of biomedicine --- mind-body duality, illness as
a biological phenomenon, the body conceived of as a
mechanistic system, among others [Scheper-Hughes and Lock
1987, Comaroff 1980, Young 1980, Pugh 1983]. Western
biomedical bias and colonial rule, in some form or the
other, have helped to create a vocabulary of medical
anthropology based on apriori western categories to which
other cultures do not often relate. As stated by Comaroff
[1981], "rigid definitions and decontextualization always
involve the creation of artificial priorities in analysis
and also the unwarranted imposition of chimerical western
categories."

Focus on apriori categories moves attention away from
the individual actor, who is usually not concerned with
pregiven categories. Illness and health are experiential
situations, and are not often differentiated from other life
experiences [Comaroff 1981, Pugh 1983, Scheper-Hughes 1990,
Worsley 1982]. Hence, the compartmentalization of medical
anthropology to only issues of health and illness can be a
distortion of what the reality is. Therefore, there must be
an interplay between medical anthropology and broader issues
of social inquiry. There is a growing sentiment that we are
first social and cultural anthropologists, and hence we need
to look at social and cultural realities like misfortune,
suffering, and affliction [Scheper—Hughes 1990, Scheper-

Hughes and Lock 1987, Worsley 1982, Hahn 1984]. In

5
Worsley's words, we are dealing, "not with illness but with
misfortune and the prevention of misfortune" [1982:327].
Scheper-Hughes has a similar opinion when she says that
"ours must be an anthropology of affliction and not simply
an anthropology of medicine" [1990:196].

These issues were brought into focus for me as I began
this dissertation research. The research was conducted in
the state of Assam in north east India. My interest in this
part of India stems from the relative lack of
anthropological studies of the area. Audrey Cantlie
[1984], one of the very few anthropologists working on the
area, writes that anthropologically speaking, almost nothing
is known of Assam, and no significant studies have been made
of the Assamese-speaking inhabitants of the Brahmaputa
valley. Being an anthropologist hailing from the
Brahmaputra Valley, I am trying to fill that gap.

I went to Assam to explore the Kamrupi medical system,
as referred to in the ethnographic and historical
literature, and its practitioners, the bej. The ancient
name of Assam is Kamarupa, and scholars [Choudhry 1959, Basu
1970] refer to the existence of Assamese manuscripts that
describe the Kamrupi system and its practices. The origin of
this tradition has been traced to the Kamrup-Kamakhya
complex —-— a specialized form of the Tantric cult of
Hinduism, which was prevalent in Kamrupa [Choudhury 1959a,

1959b, Kakati 1948, Goswami 1975]. The temple of Kamakhya

6
in Assam still attracts hundreds of devotees everyday.

The Assamese dictionary defines bej as "a conventional
physician (chikitsak, vaidya)", as well as "a faith healer
[one who treats (chikitsa kore) by incantations and
medicines]". As a native Assamese speaker I was aware that
a practice, referred to as bejali and its practitioners,
called bej, was a part of common discourse. The word bej
has been in my vocabulary all my life. I knew that the bej
were said to heal with incantations, and that there was a
sense of ambivalence about them because they caused harm as
well as healed. The talk of a Kamrupi medical system and
its practitioners in history books and my own cultural
knowledge of the existence of a category in Assamese called
bej made me decide to study that medical system, through a

study of its most identifiable aspect --- the bej.

PROBLEM OF DEFINITION. When I reached the field and tried
to identify my subject of analysis, I ran into problems.
Firstly, no one could relate to the term Kamrupi medical
system. What the history books called the Kamrupi medical
system was obviously just a generic phrase to refer to the
"medical" practices of the area at an earlier period of
time, when Assam was still known by its ancient name
Kamarupa. Today, the name Kamrup only refers to a district
in the state of Assam, and the identification of a pan—

Assamese practice by that name holds no meaning. People

7

knew about bejali and bej, but had difficulty pinpointing

who exactly a bej was. Associated with the term bej are
other terms --- ojhas, sadhaks, dhanantaris, vaidyas. All
these terms are conceptualized very loosely -—- without

rigid boundaries. There is a lack of clear cut definitions,
and a great deal of overlapping in techniques. This
resulted in disagreements among both the practitioners and
the people when deciding who was to be termed what. The
same person would be categorized as bej by one informant,
and as a sadhak by another. I was often directed to
individuals who were referred to as bej, but who did not see
themselves as such. When asked to explain why they were not
a bej, or what exactly did they call themselves, they were
often unable to give a specific answer. Some said that they
did some bejali, but were not bej as they did not practice
it full-time. Others were quite displeased at the label,
while several placed themselves in more than one category.
These individuals were obviously practicing something -—-
their large clientele was proof enough -—- but the
boundaries were too blurred to allow any categorizations.

As I looked for a medical system that was becoming more and
more elusive, I faced the dilemma of being unable to

identify a domain of analysis.

REDEFINITIQN OF DOMAINS, Facing this dilemma it became

apparent to me that I had been presenting apriori categories

8
like the Kamrupi medical system to my informants, and
expecting them to identify those categories according to my
conceptualizations. I decided then, to let my informants
elicit the domain of study for me and I found it in their
accounts of what a bej does. A bej is someone who "does
mantras" (chants incantations), or does things pertaining to
tantra-mantra and jhar phook. Nobody could give an exact
definition of what tantra-mantra was, but the general idea
presented was that it deals with esoteric mantras which can
make things happen. Jharaphook (or jorasphuka) connotes
curing through chanting mantras while waving a hand or a
blade of grass in front of the person, and blowing mantras
into a person or an object. But bej are not the only
persons dealing with mantras. thas, dhanantaris, vaidyas,
all deal with mantras, and most are seen to do tantra-mantra
and jhar-phook too. The Assamese-English dictionary
[Chondrokanto Abhidhaan] defines an ojha as a bej who uses
mantras to cure. Dhanantari is defined as a king who was an
expert in medicine, while vaidya is defined as a bej or a
physician. Jyoti Anglo-Assamese dictionary defines a healer
as a bej, vaidya, physician, as well as-a religious
physician (dhormiyo chikitsok ) --- a person who deals with
jorajphooka, an ojha. Their definition of healing, besides
the conventional one of curing or getting rid of illnesses,
also includes getting rid of enmity and antagonism (birodh

aadi mitua), to remedy, redress, retaliate (protikaar kora),

9
and/or to bring about good relations (somil mil kora).

What is apparent in all these definitions is the
metamedical framework that Worsley [1982] talks about. The
term healing goes beyond just physical ailments. As I
talked to these practitioners, I found that they do more
than just curing illnesses. Though there is confusion in
terminology, the common factor underlying all these
practitioners is the use of mantras, in one way or another.
Some use mantras to identify and get rid of their client’s
problems, while others identify and get rid of problems
created by mantras. Though the practitioners saw themselves
as different from each other, their clients consulted them
for relief from similar problems. The words of Suborno Das,
a regular client of Ghono Kanto Goswami, one of the
practitioners I talked to, can perhaps best illustrate why
people seek the help of such practitioners. I had asked
Suborno why she came to him, and she replied that she comes
to him because human beings come across many dilemmas and
problems (samasyas) as they go through life; he helps in
relieving these dilemmas and problems. Other informants
told me that life problems, illnesses and conflicts often
occur because someone inflicts them on people, either
deliberately or accidentally. These practitioners help
people cope with such dilemmas, and often all that is
required is counseling. Counsel can take the form of

assistance with a variety of problems: finding the direction

10
in which a lost cow can be found; if a missing person will
return home or not; where a missing person might be found;
why a person is not getting married; if a person will ever
get married, and if so, when; whether stolen goods will be
found, and the identity of a thief; why a person is
behaving in a particular way; will an expected promotion
come through or not, and so on.

At other times, specific remedies are needed. Mantras
are seen to bring peace to a household made unstable by
conflicts between family members. Mantras can restore
marital harmony. They can help an unmarried person to get
married, and a childless woman to conceive. They can help
in securing coveted promotions in the work place. They can
get interfering in-laws out of the way. They can help in
marriage negotiations as well as turn a person's mind away
from an unsuitable liaison.

I found that informants had trouble defining bej
because bej was too narrow a domain. The practice of bejali
became a discernable domain only in the broader context of
the practice of mantras. Bejali is only one form of
practicing mantras, and what identified bejali as a
practice, and bej as practitioners was the use of mantras.
I therefore redefined my domain of study to focus on the
cultural conceptualization of "doing mantras". The domain
of "doing mantras" is not confined to the context of health

and illness. What these practitioners are dealing with can

ll
be termed as problematic life situations, misfortunes, or
afflictions --— of which, illness and health form one
dimension.

The most common way of looking at such practitioners in
medical anthropology is in terms of their role as
traditional healers. In this dissertation I look at
practitioners or healers, but not from the constricting
health and illness related perspective generally seen in
medical anthropology. Assuming the importance of this
common perspective, Arthur Kleinman, one of the prominent
figures in medical anthropology is interested in developing
a framework that makes clinical sense. He examines how
clinical reality is differentially constituted in diverse
social structural and cultural settings, and states that a
"major research issue for medical anthropology should be to
determine more precisely the universal and culture specific
features of clinical activities" [Kleinman 1980: 375].

With this aim in View, he identifies five core clinical
functions and five categories for comparing therapeutic
relationships.

My perspective in this dissertation differs from
Kleinman’s in its focus. Though Kleinman states that
illness and care are embedded in the social and cultural
world, his emphasis is on health care and clinical reality.
But as my data will show, illness and health are only one

aspect of reality. In many societies, including Chinese

12
society that he studied, illness and health concerns are not
rigidly differentiated from other sociocultural aspects. I
therefore look at the cultural reality of problematic life
situations rather than at the clinical reality of illness
and health. Kleinman’s interest is in facilitating
practitioner-client interaction. My objective is to address
broader cultural issues through these interactions.

Kleinman distinguishes between three overlapping
sectors of health care systems -—- popular, folk and
professional, and sees each of these sectors having its own
"culture" [1980:53]. He emphasizes the process of
translation between the sectors "since it is crucial in the
interaction between patients and practitioners, in the
process of healing, and in the creation and resolution of
communication problems that are ‘endemic’ to clinical care"
[1980:53]. His focus on translation shows the existence of
different "cultural" realities between the different
sectors. He looks at how people move between such
realities. The movement between various sectors of a
society’s health care system is also addressed by Janzen
[1978], who describes and analyses the total medical scene
of one region of Lower Zaire. He focuses on the management
of illness and therapy by a set of close kin, who form the
therapy management group [Janzen 1978:41. Examining
particular cases by following the strategies of this group

as they move through various therapeutic consultations, he

l3
arrives at the-logic of therapeutic decision making. My
data does not show the importance of a therapy management
group. This is possibly because doing mantras is often an
individual activity. Besides, I have also often seen
practitioners ask clients to carry out particular remedies
in secret to obtain their efficacy.

Kleinman’s formulation of the sectors of health care
systems helps in the conceptualization of plural medical
systems. I see the practitioners I talked to as falling
into the folk sector of his formulation. And as shown by
him and Janzen, their clients also move between different
sectors. But my emphasis is not on the process of movement
and translation between sectors. Focusing on one particular
practice in the folk sector, I examine the practitioners and
clients in terms of their association with mantras, a
cultural reality which cross out various aspects of human
life. Though not disregarding other realities, I emphasize
one particular reality which is culturally seen as a way of
dealing with suffering and look at the various kinds of
problems addressed by it.

Doing mantras is only one way of dealing with suffering
in South Asia. Nichter [1981], using data from South India
shows how various forms of sociocultural distress are
addressed by Ayurveda. Pugh [1984] shows how the "category
of ‘problem’ or ‘problematic situation’ provides the general

framework for presenting and discussing complaints and

l4
dilemmas in the astrological context" [Pugh 1984:96].
Ewing [1984] examines the role of the Sufi Saints in
addressing various forms of distress in Pakistan.

In the specific context of mantras, Carstairs and Kapur
[1976] discuss three kinds of healers to whom the people of
a South Indian community turn to when in pain, sickness and
distress —-- Vaids, Mantarwadis and Patris. Vaids,
according to them are practitioners of Ayurveda.

Mantarwadis use mantras to relieve distress while Patris
have their own tutelary spirit whose power, when infused in
amulets or a piece of thread alleviates the distress. More
recently, Lambert [1992], discussing popular therapeutic
rituals and discourses about the body in rural Rajasthan
arrives at the cultural logic that orient Rajasthani folk
therapeutics. She suggests that ‘humoral’ and ‘prognostic’
dimensions constitute two forms of this cultural logic. She
states that these forms are not easily separable, since
discourses and practices which concern matters of health are
always interwoven in the context of everyday life and may be
distinguished only tentatively for analytic purposes
[Lambert 1992:1074]. She discusses what I call the practice
of mantras as therapeutic rituals and examines them in terms
of prognosis. She states that such rituals "are a form of
therapeutic action concerned with the prognosis and
developmental course, rather than the etiology, of sickness

and with a more diffuse set of cultural assumptions about

15

its meanings and implications" [1992:1074]. Gellner’s
[1994] study of possession in Nepal addresses practitioners
somewhat similar to those that I deal with, but his focus is
on the spirit medium role. He suggests that this role tends
to confirm stereotypes of gender and social lowness. As I
see it, though mantras are a common way of dealing with
problematic situations, and a lot of studies have talked
about it and about practitioners dealing with it, I have not
come across any studies in medical anthropology that has
systematically analyzed mantras as a cultural practice.

Though I examine the practice of mantras in Assam, it
needs to be kept in mind that this practice does not exist
in isolation. Ayurveda, homeopathy, astrology, medical
hospitals are all options people can, and do choose from.
But a systematic study of movement between different healing
traditions, and between different sectors of health care is
yet to be done. In my experience, and as observed in my
discussions with my informants, all these different
traditions are used in conjunction with each other.
Sometimes they are used simultaneously for the same or
different problems, while at others they are all resorted to
one after the other, especially for chronic or prolonged
afflictions.

I explore the practice of "doing mantras" by focusing
on the following three questions about it:

1. What is the nature of this practice,

16
2. What is the logic underlying this practice,
3. How influential is this practice in dictating the
thoughts and actions of cultural actors.

Examining the nature of the practice, I found that
doing mantras is a domain of culture that involves temporary
associations between practitioners and clients. In this
context, I define a practitioner as a person who has the
knowledge of doing mantras and who uses this knowledge as a
service to others. Clients are defined as the people who
come to these practitioners to avail their services. The
interaction between the practitioner and the client
constitute the practice of mantras. The interaction is
brought into play in times of problematic life situations.
It helps in managing suffering --- the experiential
dimension of affliction, misfortune, dilemmas, and crisis.
These interactions are one way of understanding why
suffering occurs and how they can be dealt with or
prevented. The key element in these interactions is the use
of mantras. The interactions are generally structured in
terms of divination, diagnoses and remedies. Each of these
three are based on certain assumptions about the nature of
the world.

The second question stemmed as result of trying to
understand why resorting to mantras in times of problems and
difficulties made sense to the clients. I identified a

cultural logic (Figure 1) that the right mantra, said by the

l7

F-L"- — "' ——————————————————————————— '1

I
I nrvm'rron :

l
I
\II mums Imss 1
ransom! / l
caverns ILLNESS - — - - --),
mama ' pom / .
<— 4 |

CAUSING LIFE PROBLEMS--->l

\ sonvms Lin mounts
pnocrmmr

CULTURAL LOGIC OF ”DOING W"

Figure 1 CULTURAL LOGIC OP ”DOING W”

 

 

 

 

 

THE PRACTICE
‘ mans ’ Chm
PRACTITIONIR (”cabinet-.10
litutim e
[DIVINATIOSL DIAGNOSIS , m1 bistro-e)
— _

l

Figure 2 CULTURAL 8m 01' m PRACTICE O? W

‘ V
CULTURALBCMOI‘TIIPRACTICIO'W

18
right person, in the right way generates a power, which can
be either positive or negative. This power can in turn be
channeled by the practitioners for various purposes ---
divination, healing illnesses, causing illnesses, solving
life problems and causing life problems. The logic makes
sense to the clients because it addresses indigenous
conceptualizations of power, or shakti.

I find Susan Wadley’s study [1975,1977] of the idea of
shakti in Hinduism and in Indian society very insightful in
this context. Wadley discusses two general connotations of
the term shakti. In one sense "it implies the female energy
of the universe, the energizing principle without which
there would be no motion" [Wadley 1975:55], but it also
means power in general. "Shakti carries the concepts of
strength, energy, and vigor; but the strength is based on
spiritual force, not physical force" [Wadley 1975 55].
Wadley found that the conceptualization of shakti is
associated with the idea of the supernatural. Every being
in the universe has shakti, some have more of it than
others. Those with more shakti can be seen as supernatural
beings for those with lesser powers. The term supernatural,
according to her, is very difficult to define. There is no
bounded supernatural domain, and a supernatural being may be
a god, a demon or a ghost. The basic characteristic of any
supernatural being, whether good or bad is in the shakti

they control or represent.

19

Wadley states that as everything in the world embodies
some power, everything in the universe is potentially a
powerful being. She makes an analytical distinction between
"unmarked", or less marked deities and "marked", or more
marked deities. Unmarked deities are those which under all
conditions are recognized as powerful beings, while marked
deities are recognized as powerful beings only under some
conditions in defined circumstances.

Wadley’s discussion of shakti is very relevant in
understanding the notions of power underlying the practice
of mantras. As I discuss the various aspects of the
practice in later chapters, I will draw out the implications
of the ideas of supernatural, and of "marked" and
"unmarked". Wadley uses the distinction between marked and
unmarked not only in the context of deities, but also other
power filled things, like wheat seeds, or a plough, which
become filled with power in particular ritual contexts. In
the context of doing mantras, this distinction helps in
understanding why ordinary words and ordinary objects can be
seen as potent items under particular circumstances.

The importance of understanding the logic behind
people’s actions cannot be overemphasized. Comaroff [1980]
has stressed the need to look at the logic behind medical
systems. Evans-Pritchard [1937] has looked at the cultural
logic underlying Azande ideas of witchcraft. Bourdieu

[1977, 1990] discusses the issue of logic at length. He

20

examines the schemes of thought, perception and action in
terms of logical categories which make practices seem
"reasonable" or "commonsense" [Bourdieu 1990]. He indicates
how pervasive unconscious unarticulated cultural logics
animate people’s behavior. He suggests that there is a
systematic character to ’habit’ or ’custom’ which
interrelate many aspects of social life according to one
underlying logic [Bourdieu 1977]. Most behavior, according
to him, is motivated by very general dispositions, which are
totalized in any culture into a habitus, defined as a system
of durable, transposable dispositions. It consists of the
central tendencies which give rise to and guide the
infinitely varied ways in which people respond to one
another in a social setting. The habitus is the unifying
principle of practices of different domains, and cultural
practices make sense because of the habitus. It is the
product of early childhood experiences, unconsciously
inculcated through socialization and continually modified by
the individual’s encounter with the world [Bourdieu 1977].

Though Bourdieu's conceptualization of habitus is a
helpful one, his idea of cultural logic is a little
different from mine. He sees the underlying logic unifying
different aspects of social life as a logic of oppositions.
Using his Algerian data, he shows how the same sets of
oppositions unconsciously organize various domains like the

traditional calendar, spatial and symbolic arrangements of

21
the house, rituals and so on. But I see cultural logic more
in terms of how people rationalize their actions rather than
in terms of an unifying underlying principle. In the
context of doing mantras, the practice makes sense because
these actions are rationalized in a convincing manner.
These rationalizations, though not often reflected upon by
the actor, do not seem to be as unconscious as Bourdieu
suggests. By defining practices as unconscious, practical
schemes, opaque to their possessors [Bourdieu 1990:12],
Bourdieu gives the sense of a social world consisting of
agentless bodies blindly following the dictates of their
cultural conditioning. As Comaroff states, "Bourdieu goes
so far - - - that his actors seem doomed to reproduce their
world mindlessly, without its contradictions leaving any
mark on their awareness - - -" [Comaroff 1985:51.

This brings me to the third question I am asking about
the practice of mantras. This question was raised in my
mind by a personal perplexity, as I tried to understand why,
inspite of growing up in the same cultural setting, these
interactions were, in a sense, foreign to me. But at the
same time, a lot of the ideas and cultural assumptions were
not alien --— the notion of evil eye, wearing of amulets, or
the role of planet configuration in determining outcomes
were notions I knew very well. I had always taken mantras
for granted and had never really looked into their role in

everyday objects like amulets or even potentized water.

22

During my fieldwork trip in Assam, I also encountered a lot
of people who, though belonging to the same cultural milieu,
were both skeptical as well as disbelieving of the practice
of mantras. This raised the issue of the role of culture in
conditioning and influencing actors thoughts and action.

Bourdieu’s conceptualization of habitus is
helpful, to a certain extent, in understanding this aspect
in the context of doing mantras. Most of the clients
operate on a tacit knowledge that mantras can do things.
The creation and perpetuation of this knowledge can be
related to that of the habitus. But his idea of the habitus
assumes that people socialized in similar ways will have
similar habitus, which in turn gets embodied within the
actors, thus bringing about its own reproduction. He says
that the past structures are incorporated into the present
and unconsciously forgotten [1977]. This is similar to
Berger and Luckman’s [1967] idea of how past generations
externalized ideas are internalized in future generations.
The problem I see in their way of looking at cultural
patterning is that they leave no room for individual choice.
They help in explaining why broader cultural frames emerge,
but they do not say why, within the same cultural setting,
people do not always follow the same logic. Individual
emotions, experiences, and ideas are disregarded in these

analyses.

23
CULTURAL SCHEMAS, Sherry Ortner’s conceptualization of
cultural schemas provide a useful theoretical framework to
analyze the three questions I am focusing on regarding the
practice of mantras. Ortner sees cultural schemas as
organized schemes "for enacting (culturally typical)
relations and situations" [Ortner 1990:60]. These schemas
shape human action in particular ways, endowing them with
particular meanings, so that they unfold along more or less
predictable lines. They are the symbolic frames through
which people understand and respond to events [Ortner
1973,1990]. Calling them key scenarios in her earlier paper
[Ortner 1973], she says that "Key scenarios, by prescribing
certain culturally effective courses of action, embody and
rest upon certain assumptions about the nature of reality"
[Ortner 1973:1342].

Schiefflien also talks of a similar concept, which he
calls a cultural scenario. He defines a cultural scenario
as an event sequence, empirically recognizable in

the general procedure by which a people repeatedly

approach and interpret diverse situations and carry

them to similar types of resolution. The situations
themselves need not be similar; it is the similar
manner in which they are interpreted, carried forward,

and resolved that is important [Schieffelin 1976:31.
He identifies a cultural scenario of reciprocity and
opposition in Kaluli interaction. Ortner looks at
hospitality as an cultural schema in Sherpa life [Ortner

1973]. She also applies the concept of cultural schemas to

analyze the founding of Sherpa religious institutions

24
[Ortner 1990]. Geertz [1980] and Sahlins [1981] have used
the notions of cultural patterns of action, cultural
scenarios that seem to order the ways in which people play
out social encounters [Ortner 1990]. These works form a
part of a larger discussion in anthropology on the role of
cultural structures in patterning human life. But for
purposes of this dissertation, I am not going into those
debates. I am only looking at Ortner’s idea of cultural
schemas. I would like to clarify at the onset that this is
not a critique of her idea. I am using the idea as she
presents it, to theoretically frame my analysis of the
practice of mantras.

Analyzing the interaction between the practitioners and
the clients in terms of a cultural schema, I examine the
practice as a cultural means of interpreting, understanding
and resolving different situations in similar ways —-— in
terms of mantras (Figure 2). Cultural schemas, according to
Ortner [1990] are grounded in particular practices, and are
the patterns or frames within which actors interpret and act
upon their situation. They are found to be sensible, useful
and logical ways of understanding reality. Ortner also says
that there is a distance or loose fit between the actor and
the schema, that is, between the actors’ selves and their
cultural models. Not all cultural models make sense to all
actors at the same time, nor will two actors necessarily

have the same relationship to the schema. Actors have some

25

amount of choice --- they can take the schema or leave it.
Linkages made with the schema are temporary and contextual.
A key factor in the cultural schema is the human agent. The
schema shapes human action in particular ways by suggesting
culturally typical ways of interpretation and enactment.
Human action, in turn, is critical in shaping the schema.
She also discusses the role of cultural schemas in ordering
and freezing of cultural practices in particular narrative
shape, by virtue of their representation in cultural stories
--- myths, legends, folktales, histories, and so forth.
Much of the time a cultural story will be just a story, with
little relevance to a person’s life. But at particular
moments in an actor’s life, the stories seem to make sense
of a person’s circumstances, and take on a new meaning.
This is of crucial interest in the practice of mantras, as
the most common way the practice is discussed in everyday
life is in the form of stories. But sometimes, especially
in times of crisis, these stories fit in with particular
experiences. They then crystalize into something more than
just a story, and help in interpreting what is going on.

These conceptualizations address the three questions I
examine in this dissertation. The rest of the chapters are
organized to analyze the cultural schema of the practice of
mantras. Chapter 2 is a discussion of mantras in Indian
studies and Indian culture. Chapter 3 is a general

discussion of the ethnographic setting of Assam, especially

26
in the context of the practice of mantras. Chapters 4, 5
and 6 examines the three components of the cultural schema —
-- the practitioners, the practice and the clients.
Chapter 7 is the conclusion where I will pull together

various issues addressed in the dissertation.

METHODOLOGY. This research is based on field study
conducted in the Indian state of Assam, focusing on the
Brahmaputra valley. In this dissertation, I look at the
Brahmaputra Valley as a geographical area, and not
specifically at the Assamese community, as "doing mantras"
is not just an Assamese practice. Hence, though the
majority of my informants are Assamese, there are also
Bengalis, Biharis, Marwaris, Nepalis, and others from whom I
received information. Inspite of mantras being a part of
Hindu religion, I also met many clients who were Muslims.
The data was obtained from three major sources.
Discussions were conducted with informants in different
parts of Assam to identify bej, to redefine my domain, and
to get at local conceptualizations of the practice of
mantras. I brought up the topic of doing mantras with
whoever I talked to -—- in market places, at social
functions, in temples, and with friends, acquaintances and
total strangers. I found people very eager to share
whatever knowledge they had on the topic with me. Most of

the information I got was in the form of stories. People

27
told me their own experiences as well as other’s experience
with doing mantras. Many of these informants were crucial
in getting me acquainted with the key practitioners I have
based the research on. I conducted extensive unstructured
interviews with practitioners and their clients. Many of
the practitioners allowed me into their sessions with
clients. This constituted the second source of data I have.
I sat through the sessions and observed the practitioner
client interactions as they went on. Besides enabling me to
understand the structure of the interactions, these
observations also allowed me get information on the kinds of
problems clients bring to the practitioners.

The third kind of data I have is from secondary
sources. The Department of Historical and Antiquarian
Studies of Assam has a large collection of local level
mantra texts, which I consulted. All the practitioners I
talked to had their own texts but most of them were
reluctant to let me handle them. Some of the practitioners
told me that they had to perform rituals on their texts at a
regular basis, and hence could not let me touch them for
fear of polluting the mantras and making them impotent. The
collection at the Antiquarian Studies library was therefore
very helpful. I also looked at various kinds of literature,
both popular and scholarly, on the Kamrupi tradition,
Ayurveda, Tantrism and other topics relevant to my research.

All the clients and practitioners have been given

28
pseudonyms to maintain their privacy. As far as possible, I
have tried to avoid naming small places like villages and
towns for the same reason. One difficulty I faced in
conducting the research was the political situation in Assam
during the early nineties, when this research was conducted.
The period during which I was there was marked by large
scale terrorism, which made it unsafe for me to go to remote
rural areas. A major part of the research was therefore
done around Guwahati and a few larger towns, though I did

manage to go to a few villages around those towns.

CHAPTER 2

MANTRAS IN GENERAL

The purpose of this chapter is to give a brief idea
about mantras, their sources, how they have been perceived
by scholars and how I have looked at them for purposes of
this dissertation.

Mantras are a combination of potent words, syllables
and sound units with a specific pronunciation and
intonation. They are seen to be efficacious both as soteric
devices as well as to gain control over the cosmos. Mantras
have been seen, especially by western scholars, as "a common
and vital, but troubling feature of Indian culture that more
often has been taken for granted than made the object of
sympathetic and systematic reflection" [Alper 1991a:1].
According to Alper the possibility of the successful use of
mantras is a common part of the Indian mentality. Yet, the
place of mantra, though analogous, is not identical to the
place of prayer in the west. Alper goes on to say that
according to the standards of modern science, mantras are
irrational. Mantrasastra (the science of mantras) thus
"shares neither the prestige of modernity nor the lingering
prestige of traditional Western religion. Perhaps for this
reason it has fallen through the cracks of Indology" [Alper

1991a:3]. This dissertation addresses this neglected part

29

30
of Indology.

As Alper [1991a] puts it, mantras are protean as a tool
of human intentionality. They are used in a variety of
contexts, for a plethora of purposes, with a multitude of
informing emotions, and by the widest variety of
individuals. The (Indian) tradition takes for granted that
mantras are powerful, they are not arbitrary, nor are they
interchangeable. Each of them is designed for a particular
task, which will achieve a particular end only when it is
used in a particular manner [Alper 1991a:6]. One of the
main reasons mantras are taken for granted is because they

stem from religious scriptures.

TEXTUAL SOURCES OF MANTRAS.

The two main sources of mantras are the Vedas and the
Tantras. Along with them are a host of regional texts,
which though often considered ”lower" in status, are

extensively used.

The Vedas. Very simplistically speaking, the Vedas are a
collection of verses, hymns and formulas. The primary
scriptures of Hinduism, the Vedas (from the root vid,‘know')
are revered as apaurusheya (not of human origin), and are
honored by epithets reserved for the gods, such as eternal,
infallible, indestructible [Walker 1968bz556]. They were

composed in an archaic form of Sanskrit, and handed down

31
orally through a succession of teachers, being progressively
expanded, and suffering changes and variations as the canon
grew [Walker 1968b:558].

There are four of these collections, together called
the Vedic Samhitas --- The Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the
Sama Veda, and the Atharvaveda. Mantras constitute the main
body of the samhita compilations and are the most ancient
part of the vedas [Walker 1968b:557]. The Rig Veda is
regarded as the most important of the four vedas and is
often seen as the Veda. It is a collection of prayers,
praise, and invocation to the gods, mostly in metrical form.
It was composed sometime between 1500 B.C and 900 B.C. The
Yajur Veda, presumed to be composed between 700 B.C and 900
B.C, is compiled mainly from the Rig Vedic hymns, but is
mostly in prose. It is a collection of formulas consisting
of the rules and methods for the performance of sacrifice
(yagya). The third Veda, the Sama Veda, is also presumed to
have been composed between 700 B.C and 300 B.C, and it
consists of hymns, most of which are from the Rig Veda. It
suggests the melodies in which these hymns are to be sung,
by showing the prolongation, repetition, and interpolation
of syllables required in the singing.

The Atharvaveda is different from the other three, in
that it consists largely of spells and incantations. It is
concerned less with rituals and more with the problems of

ordinary life [Embree 1972]. Walker describes the nature

32
and range of Atharvavedic mantras as such,

The Atharvaveda embodies the magical formulary of
ancient India, and much of it is devoted to spells,
incantations, chants and charms. In general the charms
and spells are divided into two classes: they are
either bheshajani, which are of a medicinal, healing
and peaceful nature, dealing with cures and herbs for
treating fever, leprosy, jaundice, dropsy and other
diseases; this class includes prayers for successful
childbirth, love spells, charms for fecundity, for the
recovery of virility, hymns for the birth of sons, and
a quaint chant to put the household to sleep while the
lover steals into the girl’s home at night. Or else
they belong to the abhichara class, which are of a
bewitching and malevolent nature; these include spells
for producing diseases and bringing ill-luck to
enemies., Among them is a spell that a woman may use
against her rival to make her remain a spinster;
another spell is meant to destroy a man’s virility and
so forth. There are hymns to serpents and demons, and
incantations replete with witchcraft, sorcery and black
magic [Walker 1968az95].

Ayurveda, the traditional Indian science of health, was
closely associated with the Atharvaveda. The Atharvaveda
presents an entire pantheon of demons who bring about bodily
distress as well as the mantras needed to expel these demons
so as to cure the affected person. The healer chants
mantras, often by waving or stroking certain plants over the
patient, along with preparing and using medicines, which
have often been consecrated by mantras [Zysk 1991]. Mantras
were the key component of the healing rite. It appears that
both Ayurveda and what I call the "practice of mantras" had
roots in the Atharvaveda, but at some point during its
development, Ayurveda severed connections with mantras and
assumed a more "rational" form. Tracing the early

Ayurvedic doctrinal shift from a magico-religious approach

33
to medicine to a more empirico-rational one, dating from
around the Christian era, Zysk [1991] nevertheless states
that later medical evidence demonstrates that magical
medicine did not completely vanish vis-a’—vis the developing
Ayurveda. A reverence for the older medical tradition of
the Atharvaveda was still advocated in the older Ayurvedic
treatises. The professors of the Assam Ayurvedic College
whom I talked to also acknowledged the mention of the use of
mantras in the texts, but, for professional reasons, their
curriculum now includes basic know-how of biomedical
techniques and not these ancient ideas. Zysk [1991:1261
groups the employment of mantras in the Ayurvedic texts
under the following categories: (1) the treatment of
swellings and tumors and of wounds and sores (sotha, vrana);
(2) the treatment of poison ( visa ); (3) the treatment of
mental disorders ( unmatta, apasmara ); (4) the treatment of
fever (jvara), and (5) the collection and preparation of
certain medicines [Zysk 1991:130]. Though not treated by
mantras in Ayurveda anymore, these categories, among
others, are still used by most of the practitioners "doing
mantras", along with the technique of stroking a hand, a
blade of grass or some other object over the patient (jora,
jhar). The mantras of the Atharvaveda are therefore
significant in the context of doing mantras, one part of
which involves the treatment of various kinds of illnesses.

Originating with the Vedas, the term mantra, in the ‘

34
course of time came to be applied to any sacred verse from
the scriptures, to spells, cryptic syllables, and "words of
power", based on the magical properties believed to be

inherent in sounds [Walker 1968b:25].

The Tantras. The term "Tantra" has a variety of meanings.
In a broad sense, any system or thought structure was known
as Tantra [Bhattacharyya 1982:21. But it also denotes a
loose set of doctrines and practices, followed by "certain
left-hand sects of Hindus and Buddhists" [Walker 1968b:482],
and often seen as contra-Vedic. The canon of Tantrism is
believed to have been revealed by the god Shiva to his wife
Parvati and a large part of its scriptures are in the form
of dialogues between Shiva and Parvati. There is really no
single Tantric ideology, neither is there a systematic
philosophy [Alper 1991b:395]. There is an abundant Tantric
literature, both in Sanskrit and in some regional languages,
most of them still untranslated. Some of the Tantras are
extremely obscure since the basic teachings were
communicated orally and hence only partially written down at
later times [Walker 1968b]. In general, the topics treated
by Tantric doctrines are, (1) the creation of the universe
(srishti), (2) its dissolution (pralaya), (3) worship of
deities, (4) spiritual exercises, (5) rituals, (6) magical
powers, and (7) meditation [Walker 1968b:483].

My interest for purposes of this dissertation is in the

35
association of "magical powers" with tantric practices. To a
significant degree, what we call magical is integral to the
Tantric spiritual exercises (sadhana) as such [Alper
1991b:411]. But some texts (Indrajal Tantra, Tantrasaar,
Kamaratna Tantra, Kakshaputa, Kothulvidya, Kotukrahasya,
Dattareyatantra, Bhutadamaratantra) are more magical than
others [Kakar 1982, Goudriaan and Gupta 1981, Alper 1991b].
The magical dimension of Tantra is seen in the performance
of the Tantric Satkarmas, the "six acts of ’magic’, whereby
the master of mantra and meditation controls the cosmos in
all its threatening diversity" [Alper 1991b:410]. These six
acts are:
Maron (Liquidation) the power to kill or maim by mantras.
Santi (Pacification) the power to bring peace and happiness,
cure illness, get rid of evil influences of planets, bad
mantras, spirits.
vasikaran (Subjugation) the power to infatuate, bewitch men,
women, gods, and animals so as to have one’s desires
fulfilled by them, cause one to be subservient and
controlled by another.
Stambhan (Immobilization) the power to paralyze, stop
others’ actions, prevent the effects of others’ actions,
even when they are already operating.
Ucchatan (Eradication) the power to torment one with pain,
shame or material discomfort, make enemies flee in shame and

disgrace, power to explode houses and dwellings.

36
Vidvesana (Sgwing Dissension) The power of separating
friends or relatives, creating ill-feeling between two
parties (and thereby separating them from one another).
[Alper 1991b, Chattopadhyaya 1978, Bharati 1965, Kakar 1982,
Banerji 1978].

These Six Acts are performed through mantras. Used
along with mantras are yantras, which are mystical diagrams
possessing immense power when used in a properly directed
way. These diagrams are of two kinds, one for wearing on
the neck, arm or lock of hair as an amulet and the other,
taken as identical with the deity for the purpose of worship
[Chattopadhyaya 1978:80]. Yantras, when used for amulets
often have the person’s name written on it, which is then
made potent by chanting mantras over it. The Tantric
satkarmas are achieved both by mantras as well as by a
combination of mantras and yantras. There are countless
numbers of mantras and yantras, and it is impossible for a
person to have efficacious knowledge of all of them. The
practitioner chooses the mantras and yantras he uses
according to his own knowledge ( which is usually based on
the knowledge of his guru or gurus ) and the person's
symptoms and needs.

For both spiritual as well as non-spiritual (magical)
purposes, "mantra is the chief instrument of Tantrism"
[Bharati 1965:101]. Mantra is so central to Tantrism, that

tantrics (followers of Tantrism) are often called mantriks

37
and Tantra itself is seen as synonymous with mantra—shastra
(the science of mantras) [Kakar 1982:171]. It is for this
reason that my informants often used the terms "doing
mantras" and "doing tantra-mantra" synonymously. A mantra
is primarily a sequence of sound units (sphotas) with a
characteristic pronunciation and intonation which the
disciple normally learns from his guru (teacher). The major
constituent of a mantra is a combination of bijas (seeds).
A bija is a syllable without apparent meaning [Kakar
1982:1721. H.V Glasenapp states that such unintelligible
syllables ( om, hum, khat, phat ) were known and
metaphysical meaning ascribed to them since the later part
of the Vedic period. But Tantric literature increased the
number of these syllables to an immeasurable degree and
"established quasi-scientific methods about how to combine
these syllables either with one another or with meaningful
words in order to unfold their dormant powers" [Glasenapp
1940: cf. Bharati 1965:1091. Mantric utterance is always
methodical, and can never be both casual and effective.
Mantras will be invalid, and not work if improperly
launched. But still, the Hindu Tantras do not provide a
single list or preliminaries that are either necessary or
sufficient for the successful use of a mantra [Alper
1991b:423]. This is perhaps because the Hindu tradition is
primarily an oral tradition [Alper 1991 a,b, Coburn 1984,

Staal 19791. The authoritative works of the Indian

38
traditions, though having been written down or printed,
remain "oral" in character [Alper 1991b:3551. The higher
status given to memory or the sound of recitation in
comparison to writing [Staal 1979, Coburn 1984] can be seen
in the importance given to the role of the guru (teacher),

which I will discuss later on in the chapter.

Local Level Mantra Texts. Besides the pan-Indian, purely
Vedic and Tantric texts, various local level texts also
exist and are extensively used by both Tantric and non-
tantric practitioners. The mantras are mostly in regional
languages, though sometimes mixed in with Sanskrit words or
bija (seed) mantras. The literature on such texts is very
scanty. The texts I am interested in, in the context of
Assam are those which are broadly called bejali puthis
(bejali texts) or simply mantra puthis (mantra texts). They
are unbound manuscripts, hand written in an archaic form of
Assamese, usually on bark (sanchi paat), or on pieces of
paper. They are normally individual or family possessions,
and hence, hardly ever published. Most of the time, they
are the books used by a practitioner, which he then passes
on to his disciple or successor before he dies. A lot of
these texts are highly esoteric and, especially in the case
of texts having harmful mantras, are kept extremely secret.
I was told by my informants that a lot of these personal

manuscripts are being lost forever, because if a person died

39
without teaching his esoteric knowledge to a successor, then
his books are thrown in the river. Coburn [1984:4441 also
talks about "the widespread custom that if a teacher does
not find a student worthy of inheriting his manuscripts, he
will, in his old age, simply discard them by throwing them
into a river --- (as) living documents, unvivified by
personal relationships are lifeless".

There has been no studies on these personal or family
manuscripts, especially in Assam. The Historical and
Antiquarian Studies department of the Government of Assam
has been trying to collect such manuscripts and retrieve
them before they are destroyed or allowed to rot and
disintegrate by the families who own them. They now have a
collection of about 150 manuscripts. Many of them are
already unreadable -- being moth eaten, full of mold, the
writing washed away in rain or in floods, or just torn or
broken (in the case of those written on bark). They range
in size from 14 inches by 6 inches to 4 inches by 2 inches,
the smallest ones easily fitting into the palm of a hand.
Their contents range from twenty-five to as low as five
folios. An analysis of these manuscripts is beyond the
scope of this dissertation, but looking through them, I
found that many of them seemed to be a single mantra or a
collection of mantras for specific purposes (curing snake
bites, getting rid of spirits and ghosts, getting rid of

pain, fever, swelling, or effects of other’s bad mantras,'

40
easing childbirth etc). A practitioner owns several of
these manuscripts, thus giving him a range of mantras for a
range of purposes. Different practitioners use different
mantras for the same purpose, and there were very few
mantras in the manuscripts that were identical. Only about
five or six of these bejali puthis have been published, and
there is the general idea that the mantras lose their
efficacy with publication. This is because of the feeling
that the mantras will not be effective without a guru to
teach them as well as the notion that publication and the
ensuing commercialization will destroy the power inherent in
the mantra.

Though I have distinguished between three sources of
mantras -—- Vedic, Tantric and local, it needs to be kept in
mind that these are not clear cut distinctions. The history
of the present form of mantras has been very eclectic.

Alper states that mantras are quintessentially Vedic [1991b:
3321, but, for the most part, mantras of the past millennium
have been tantric [1991b:3921. The Tantras have been
drawing their material from Vedic sources with their own
modifications [Chattopadhyaya 1978]. At the same time, side
by side with Sanskrit mantras, vernacular mantras were also
developing under Tantric influence [Chattopadhyaya 1978:73].
Alper states that it is impossible to separate Vedic,
Tantric and folk elements, and that

any attempt to draw fixed external or internal
boundaries is bound to fail. For at least a part of

41

the millennium, all of Hinduism has been Tantricized.

Similarly, if to a lesser extent, all of Hinduism is

arguably Vedicized. Yet, the bulk of mantras were

surely uttered in contexts that were not explicitly

Vedic or Tantric -- [Alper 1991b:358].

The eclecticism is very noticeable in the use of mantras by
practitioners. The practitioners I talked to use a
combination of Vedic, Tantric and local mantras. The
mantras they use to solve their client’s problems are
selected in terms of their efficacy and not in terms of
their source. The clients too do not bother about the
source of the mantras. As far as they are concerned, what
gives the mantra its power is the fact that it is the right
mantra, recited by a person who has the knowledge and the
power to use it in the exact way. The demand for exactness
--- in matching words, time and action, in pronunciation,
stress and rhythm —-- is what Alper [1991b:337] sees as one
of the major continuities between Vedic, Tantric, and
popular use of mantras.

Another major requirement in the effective use of
mantras, whether Vedic, Tantric or local is the need of a
guru (teacher) in learning the mantra. Bharati [1965:1861
defines a guru as a person who is capable of conferring
initiation (diksa) on another person, and who has himself
received initiation from one or more gurus. The most
important aspect of diksa is that "its content must be a

mantra of some sort or that a mantra must be a part of its

content" [Bharati 1965:1851. The guru, through the process

42
of initiation discloses the mantra to his disciple (sishya).
The guru holds the key to the efficacy of mantras [Alper
19911. A mantra, when taken from a competent guru is always
supposed to have a potency behind it [Chattopadhyaya 1978].
Even though the mantra may be obtainable in written form, it
will be effective only when the guru teaches the exact way
of saying and using it. A mantra lying in the pages of a
manuscript or book has no force or power behind it; it is
just a string of words put together. It is the guru, who
makes the mantra into a living force, and initiates the
disciple with it [Chattopadhyaya 1978]. An amount of
secrecy is also involved in the disclosure of mantras, as a
mantra loses its efficacy if revealed to a non—initiate
[Bharati 1965:1181. It is usually the guru who decides
which mantra is suitable for which disciple. As different
gurus have different "specialties", it is normal for an avid
pupil to have a succession of gurus [Alper 1991b:413]. The
guru-sishya (teacher-disciple) relationship is an extremely
important one in the practice of mantras, and both the guru
and the sishya often test each other before sealing the

relationship with an initiation.

MANTRAS IN THE ACADEMIC CONTEXT .
Various definitions of mantras have been put forth by
scholars, ranging into different degrees of complexity. In

fact, most earlier studies started with the authors'

43
definition of what a mantra is. Alper [1991a:6] has
suggested that debating what really counts as a mantra and
what defines it as a mantra is unlikely to yield interesting
results. Instead, it would be more worthwhile to look at
the kinds of situations in which mantras have been
characteristically used. I agree with this suggestion, and
instead of going into the question of definition, I am only
laying down one scholar’s [Gonda] sense of what mantras are.
Instead of one over arching definition, Gonda moves through
a series of definitions. Focusing on the Veda, he defines
mantras as a general name for formulas, verses or sequences
of words in prose which contain praise, and which are
believed to have magical, religious or spiritual efficacy,
are recited, muttered, or sung in the Vedic ritual and which
are collected in the methodically arranged corpora of Vedic
texts. His second definition sees mantra as a consultation,
resolution, advice, counsel, design, plan, secret. His
third definition is in terms of classical (popular)
Hinduism, where he sees mantras as covering also all potent
(so-called magical) forms of texts, words, sounds, letters,
which bring good luck to those who know or possess them, and
evil to their enemies. His fourth definition is in the
Tantric context and defines mantra as a power (shakti) in
the form of formulated and expressed thought [Gonda1975, cf
Alper 1991a]. I find this four-fold sense of mantras useful

for my purposes, as they reflect the sense of mantras that

44
my informants have.

Two common approaches to the study of mantras can be
discerned --- mantras as instances of language, and mantras
in terms of their role in religious transfiguration [Alper
1991a]. Without denying the importance of a linguistic
approach} to mantras, I also appreciate Padoux:[1991]
warning that one should not lose sight of the fact that
mantras are a form of speech or sound within an Indian
context, are a part of a certain type of practice,
functioning within the ideology of Hinduism, and within an.
anthropological framework. Mantras have "meaning" only
within this universe of discourse. It is therefore not a
case of speech or language in general, "still less of
language as we conceive or use it" [Padoux 1991:3001.

As religious instruments, mantras have often been
examined in terms of their role in attaining salvation. But
besides this philosophical aspect, mantras are also used in
the context of everyday life. Alper [1991a] therefore
distinguishes between quotidian and redemptive mantras. By
quotidian he designates "purposes intended to cope with the
multitudinous dilemmas of daily life" [8], such as "the
discovery of lost cattle, the cure of impotence or
barrenness, a passing grade in a university examination"
[7]. By redemptive, he designates "purposes informed by the
desire to cope with the human condition as a whole" [8],

such as escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth, the

45
diminution of the effect of bad karma, or transportation to
the realm of the god to whom one is devoted [7]. He does
not see these as absolute distinctions, but as a continuum,
with the quotidian intention of mantras at one pole and the
redemptive at the other. Padoux [1991], while acknowledging
the fundamentality of the redemptive aspect of mantras, also
remarks that "only a minority of mantras are redemptive.
Mantras first and foremost are words and sounds of power for
ritual use and only secondarily, if centrally, soteric
devices" [3081. He goes on to say that mantras in India are
used much more often to gain supernatural powers or to
produce "magical" effects than for redemptive purposes.
Observing the comparative lack of studies on the practical
use of mantras, he sees it as a field still open for
research. He emphasizes that besides their textual and
historical analysis, mantras also need to be "viewed as a
livingpractice, in India and, perhaps, elsewhere" [313].
In a previous article [1978, cf Alper1991a] he had called
for the need to see how mantras "function" and what can be
said about the mantric phenomenon as a type of human praxis
and discourse. A similar suggestion is made by Alper when
he says that it is equally important to collate the
examination of texts with anthropological field reports that
examine how mantras, in fact, are used [Alper 1991a: 9
footnote]. This dissertation looks at how mantras are used '

to deal with the practical considerations of life.

46
Mantras are used in everyday life in two ways.
Mandelbaum [1966] distinguishes between "pragmatic" and
"transcendental" aspects of religion, which he suggests are
expressed in two different "complexes" of religious beliefs
and practice. The "transcendental" complex
is used to ensure long term welfare of society, to
explain and help maintain village institutions, to
guarantee the proper transition of individuals from
stage to stage within the institutions. It is
concerned with the ultimate purposes of man. The
pragmatic complex, by contrast, is used for local
exigencies, for personal benefit, for individual
welfare --- (such as) the curing of a sick child, the
location of a lost valuable, victory in a local tussle
[Mandelbaum 1966].
This dissertation addresses only what Mandelbaum calls the
pragmatic complex. Babb [1975] sees the difference between
the two in terms of hierarchy ---- the practitioners of the
transcendental complex are Brahmins, and they worship higher
level pan-Indian deities. The practitioners of the pragmatic
complex are of lower caste and they deal with lesser, local
level deities. This seems to be in contrast with my
experience in Assam, where, though the transcendental
complex is totally in the hands of the Brahmins, the
practitioners of the pragmatic complex are both Brahmins and
non-Brahmins. In fact, I was told that though there is no
caste distinction in "doing mantras", at least till the
recent past most of this knowledge existed only in Brahmin

families, and was circulated only within the higher castes.

The main distinction I see between the two complexes in the

47
context of mantras is in the purposes for which the innate
power of mantras are used in everyday life. This power of
mantras is harnessed by knowledgeable persons for different
purposes -—— as a tool for meditation or for the attainment
of higher spiritual goals, to conduct rituals of worship
(pujas), or to manipulate the world. Pujas are prescribed
rituals of worship and homage to the gods, conducted by a
Brahmin priest, usually on behalf of a worshiper. They are
performed at various times and for various reasons,
including in times of crisis and life transitions like
birthdays and weddings. The chief purpose of a puja is to
revere the god or goddess and seek their blessings. The
priest has the power to conduct the ritual by virtue of his
caste; he does not necessarily need to develop any personal
powers.

In doing mantras, the personal power of the
practitioner, combined with the power of the mantra is used
for pragmatic purposes --- to diagnose and remedy a person’s
situation. The supernatural power is not only confined to
gods and goddesses, but also includes the power of spirits
or ghosts. It is contextual --- mantras are resorted to
only in times of crisis, fear or worry. Moreover, it is
personalized, individualized, and at a more one to one
level. Though used in both pujas and in doing mantras, in
the former, mantras are a part of an ritual, while in the

later, chanting the mantra is the ritual. Doing mantras

48
takes off from a religious base, but then assumes a form
that in western terms is generally seen as magic.

The western distinction between religion and magic
[Grimes 1985, Alper 1991b] has resulted in much of what
Alper calls quotidian mantras, as being seen as "magic",
both by western and non-western scholars. The term "magic"
is often used to describe practices that are at once popular
and practical, in spite of the fact that practical concerns
accounts for the overwhelming popularity of mantric
utterance in traditional India [Alper 1991b]. The
Atharvaveda has been considered "magical" in contrast to the
other three Vedas [Alper 1991b, Bharati 1965, Banerji 1978,
Chattopadhyaya 1978], and so are the tantric satkarmas
[Bharati 1965, Goudriaan 1978, Kakar 1982, Chattopadhyaya
1978, Bhattacharyya 1982, Banerjee 1978]. Both the
Atharvaveda and Tantrism has been looked down upon because
of the "magical" aspect in them. At the local level,
vernacular "magical" mantras are considered to be of a lower
level, though they may often be the most popular mantras in
use. Alper [1991b:348] argues for the impossibility and
inadvisability of trying to separate religious and magical
strands in the study of mantras. As stated by Padoux,
mantras usually have both redemptive and magical effects.
With mantras we are at once in the world of spiritual
experience and in that of supernatural or "magical" powers

[Padoux 1991:3101.

49

Both Alper and Padoux also underscore the need for
studies of regional mantric traditions. They both [Alper
1991b:374,403; Padoux 1991:3131 see Assam as an interesting
case in this context, because of its importance in the
tantric tradition. It is particularly in eastern India that
Tantrism reached its culmination, and most major works of
this philosophy are of eastern origin [Walker 1968b:482].
Assam is one of the main regions of Tantric predominance,
and the temple of Kamakhya is one of the main pithas (seats,
centers of Tantric worship). Kamarupa, the ancient name of
Assam is prominent in most Tantric texts [Bharati 1965,
Chattopadhyaya 1978, Banerji 1978, Bhattacharyya 1982, Kakar
1982, Walker 1968b]. The Kamaratna Tantra, a widely known
magical Tantra, dealing with the Tantric Satkarmas was
written in Assamese. Connected with the Tantric influence
is the reputation of Kamarupa as the land of magic. Walker
[1968a:861 states that "Kamarupa was known from early days
as the home of black magic and witchcraft, and several
Tantric charms and spells in ancient Assamese still
survive". But nobody has really studied the "magical"
dimension of Assam. This dissertation is a step in that

direction.

50

NOTES

In anthropology, Tambiah’s [1985] article, The Magical
Power of Words uses a linguistic approach to analyze
ritual words (including mantras), spells and magical
language. But this piece of work was not very relevant
to my present purposes as I am trying to get away from
the study of mantras as instances of language.

CHAPTER 3

THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SETTING

The locus of this research is the Brahmaputra valley in
North East India, which forms a major portion of the present
Indian state of Assam. For centuries Assam remained outside
the bounds of the Indian mainstream, largely due to its
peripheral geographical location and its climate, which
seemed unhealthy to outsiders. The region receives a high
amount of rain, its neighboring Khasi and Jaintia Hills
having the distinction of getting the highest rainfall in
the world. Being a narrow valley, the six hundred
kilometers of the Assam plains was, and still is, prone to
high floods, with its accompanying health hazards.

The tropical climate of the region gives the area many
forests, which abound with wild animals and snakes. The
Mughal empire, which took over almost all of India could not
incorporate Assam into its fold. One of the two most common
legends still circulating among people about the reasons for
this is that the advancing Mughal army could not tolerate
the malaria infested jungles of Assam, and had therefore to
leave. The second story is that they were defenseless
against the powerful Assamese bej who caused the entire
army, including the general, to get so ill that they were

forced to retreat.

51

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53

In ancient India this area was known as Kamarupa. It
is difficult to determine when the Brahmaputra valley came
to be called Assam. The most common explanation is that the
term Asam, Assam, or Ahom was originally applied to a Shan
tribe who migrated from upper Burma at the beginning of the
thirteenth century, and gradually extended throughout the
Brahmaputra Valley. According to the Ahom tradition, the
name meant "unequalled" or "peerless" and was applied to
them in admiration by the local tribes [Gait 1906:2411. The
Ahoms did not impose their religion and culture on their
subjects. Rather, they took to Hinduism in the course of
time, including Tantric Hinduism. The Assamese society gave
the Ahoms a distinct place as a caste, neither very highly

placed, nor in the lowest categories.

Assam in the present times has an area of 78,523 sq.
kilometers. The state is primarily agricultural, with very
little industrial development even in the present times.
Conceptually, the Brahmaputra valley is divided into Upper
Assam and Lower Assam. This distinction is based on the
location of a place in the upper part (ujoni) or the lower
part (namoni) of the river Brahmaputra. There is some
variation in customs and dialect between the two, but the
differences are not significant for purposes of this
dissertation. There is no clear cut division between the

two segments, but the conceptual transition from Upper to

54
Lower Assam is made somewhere between Guwahati and the town
of Nowgong, located about 75 miles east of Guwahati.
Guwahati, the largest city in the region is generally seen
to be a part of Lower Assam, though in recent times, people
from all over Assam have settled in this city.

The state had a population of nearly twenty million in
the 1981 census [Das 1982:11. Besides the Assamese, the
population consists of various tribal groups who surround
the state, as well as Bengalis, Nepalis, Marwaris, and other
outsiders. During and after the British rule, several
million people migrated to Assam from other areas. They
belonged to three main groups --- hindu Bengalis, who came
to take the administrative posts created by the British, and
to work in the railway industry, the tea garden workers who
came mostly from the tribal areas of central India, and
Bengali muslim immigrants from East Bengal, the area
currently known as Bangladesh [Das 1982]. The last two
decades have been turbulent times in Assam, due to massive
uprisings of indigenous Assamese, who fear themselves
becoming a minority in their own state.

(Hinduism is the dominant religion of the state. The
region is a stronghold of Tantrismi)especially the Sakta
school (a way of thinking in which reality is ultimately
identified with a goddess) of Hindu Tantrics, evidence of
which can be seen in the numerous temples dedicated to

various manifestations of the goddess Durga. A major

55
festival of the state is the four day Durga Puja
celebrations in autumn, marked by at least a four day long
holiday, educational institutions closing down for three
weeks. The Sakta aspect has been completely ignored by
Audrey Cantlie [1984], who, in her ethnography of an
Assamese village only focusses on Assamese Vaishnavism
(followers of god Vishnu). She states that

The majority of Assamese Hindus follow the path of

devotion based on the teachings of the Bhagavata

Purana which is associated in the state with the

name of a fifteenth century preacher called

Shankardeva. Today Shankardeva is venerated among

Assamese Vaishnavas not only as the founder of

their faith and an incarnation of Vishnu but as

the originator of all that is peculiarly Assamese

in their social organization and culture, and

hence, in a sense, as the father of the Assamese

nation [Cantlie1984zxi].

In her ethnography, Cantlie seems to include the entire
Assamese society within the term Assamese Vaishnavism. The
Assamese Vaishnavism that she is talking about was the
result of a reform movement against priestly domination and
rituals. It was perhaps the same wave of reformism which
appeared in different regions of India around the same time
-—- Ramanujan in South India, Tulsidas in Central India,
Guru Nanak in the Punjab, and Chaitainya in Bengal.

In Assam, Shankardeva and his followers started a devotional
movement, with a form of prayer called naam kirtan. Naam
primarily means a name, and, secondarily and idiomatically,

prayer, usually sung aloud. Kirtan involves singing hymns

of praise to god Vishnu, usually in a group. Kirtan is also

56
the name of a religious text narrating the doings of god
Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu), which the Vaishnavas
regard as their main text. Naam kirtan does away with
priestly rituals and concentrates solely on common prayer by
reciting hymns accompanied by clapping of hands and sounding
of cymbals and drums. Shankardev and other contemporaries
of the reform wave of that period attempted to bring out the
basic Vedic truths into local languages so that the common
people could understand them. This was in contrast to the
prevailing system of Sanskrit ritualism, that led to
absolute dependence on the priests for religious matters.
The organizing structure of the movement was the
establishment of the Satra institution, which has been very
well described by Cantlie [1984]. A satra consists of a
guru and the disciples initiated by him. Every Assamese
Vaishnava is required to take initiation from the family
guru prior to his marriage. The guru, who is the head of
the satra, is called satradhikaar (owner of the satra), or
Gosai (god). The position of Satradhikar is a hereditary
one in satras where the Gosai can marry. In satras where he
has to be celibate, a boy from a Gosai family is given to
the satra at a young age and trained as the intended adhikar
(owner) [Cantlie 1984]. In my experience, most Gosais come
from families with the last name Goswami, and in recent
times at least, a man with the name Goswami is often

addressed as Gosai.

57

A satra derives its income from two main sources ---
satra land, and dues of its disciples. There are estimated
to be about 650 satras in the Assam Valley, of which only
twenty are rich and powerful. The majority of satras are
poor and getting poorer [Cantlie 1984]. It appears that the
importance of the Gosai as a spiritual leader is slowly
decreasing in many parts of Assam. But some Vaishnavites
politicise the situation by dichotomizing Assamese religious
life into followers of Vishnu and followers of other
deities, especially goddesses (gosani). By ignoring the
importance of other deities, and by equating Assamese
society solely with Assamese Vaishnavism, Cantlie plays
right into their political intentions. The importance of
Vaishnava sects and subsects in present day Assamese society
cannot be denied, and they have many followers. But they do
not reflect the entire picture. It is significant that
there is constant intermarriage between Vaishnavites and
non-Vaishnavites. My own set of acquaintances and relatives
belong to both "groups" and I see no dichotomization,
especially at the everyday level. Most Assamese worship a
range of Hindu deities, and Vaishnavs, except for the very
fundamentalist ones, often go to other temples. Even in the
context of "doing mantras", I have talked to practitioners
who are either Gosais of satras or come from Gosai families,
but who talk in terms of Tantric satkarmas. Cantlie’s

ethnography, though excellent in its analysis, is a

58
normative account of an Assamese religious sect, and only

partially reflects Assamese religious reality.

Sociocultural aspects. In this section, I describe certain
sociocultural aspects of Hindu Assamese which are relevant
to my analysis, mainly in the arenas of family, marriage and
religion. I also lay out particular culturally important
concerns and sources of distress that emerge from this
sociocultural setting.

Assamese families are patrilineal and patrilocal. Sons
carry on the family (bonsho) through successive generations.
Perpetuation of the family line is such an important
consideration that some families follow a variation of the
marriage ritual where the bride is required to hold a male
child on her lap for a little while to symbolize the purpose
of the union being solemnized. Children are born into their
father’s caste and sons are permanent members of that
family. A daughter stays a member of her father’s family
till she marries. During the marriage ceremony, her father
ritually severs all her ties to his family and gives her
away as a "gift" (kanyadaan) to the bridegroom. She then
gets ritually incorporated into his family.

Two kinds of marriages are distinguished --- "arranged"
and "love". Ideally, it is the duty of the parents to
search for suitable spouses and "arrange" their children’s

marriage. A majority of the marriages belong to this

59

category. "Love" marriages (when a couple fall in love and
decide to marry), though common, are usually looked down
upon. In an arranged marriage, most negotiations start
with locating a suitable person belonging to the same caste.
Some of the considerations in selecting a prospective bride
or groom are that they should preferably come from families
of similar economic standing, should be a "good girl" (bhal
sowali) or a "good boy" (bhal lora), with a good reputation.

The boy’s economic situation, with a steady income is very
important, and a young man with a good job is an excellent
catch in the marriage market. A girl’s looks and
temperament are given weight, and a pretty, demure, obedient
person, with good housekeeping skills is the best choice.
In recent times, higher education is becoming increasingly
important for both sexes, a bachelor’s degree being seen as
a minimum degree, especially in urban areas, even by lower
middle class families. I find the terms a "good boy" and a
"good girl" very intriguing because there is generally no
fixed criteria on which to assess "goodness". A congenial
personality, everyday behavior, academic achievements,
economic security, special skills --- all or any of these,
besides others, can be a measure of a "good" girl or boy.

Once a suitable person is spotted, the horoscopes of

the prospective bride and groom are usually matched on
astrologically prescribed points. Often, especially in

Brahmin families, the final stage when negotiations are

60

finalized is called "viewing the girl". Family members of
the prospective groom, or the groom himself would inspect
the prospective bride, either at her or someone else's home,
or at some public place. Though there is a protocol in
many families in Assam, unlike other places in India, not to
reject a girl after she is formally "viewed", this is a time
of utmost tension for the girl’s family, as the final say in
the negotiations usually rest with the bridegroom’s side.

Inability to get a daughter married is a source of
constant worry to parents. Metaphorically, "the father of a
girl is in possession of an asset that can only be realized
by being given away" [Cantlie 1984:58]. The marriage
negotiations themselves are the source of many quarrels, and
are conducted privately in the early stages to avoid
malicious gossip against the prospective bride or the groom
spoiling the chances of a settlement [Cantlie 1984:58].
Even after a negotiation has been finalized, both parties
tread warily in case someone, out of malice or jealousy
deliberately or unconsciously prevents the marriage from
taking place. Most families perform some kind of religious
ritual before a wedding seeking divine blessings on the
couple, as well as divine help to prevent any problems
coming up before the ceremony and to enable the celebrations
to go off smoothlyl.

Religion forms an important aspect of everyday life in

Assam. Religion is a domain learned right from childhood.

61
Every home either has a specific room or a specific corner
of the house set aside as sacred, which has an altar where
the family members chant their prayers, or request the gods
for favors. One of the daily rituals of most Hindu women is
an early morning bath and then a visit to the altar to light
a lamp or some incense. Many families ritualistically light
lamps twice a day, once‘in the morning and once at dusk
(sandhya) --- the period of transition between day and
night. Besides, visits to temples, both during festivals as
well as at other times, and the performance of pujas
(rituals of worship) are very common in most families.
Pujas are also performed on a public or institutional basis,
to mark particular festivals. Institutions like banks,
schools and colleges perform a special puja for Saraswati,
the goddess of learning, to mark the annual festival called
Saraswati puja. The flour-day long annual festival of Durga
puja is marked by numerous large scale and expensive public
performances of pujas devoted to goddess Durga and her
associate deities, all over the state. As goddess Durga
symbolizes shakti (force, power), various police and other
security forces all over the state also perform this puja in
a big way. Similarly, factories, construction companies and
businesses dealing with machinery perform an annual puja to
pay homage to the god of machinery and construction,
Vishwakarma. This shows the importance of religion in

various domains of society —-- economics, finance,

62

education, and law enforcement, among others. These and
various other such pujas, though performed to obtain the
deities’ blessings, are also social occasions, where people
get together, enjoy various kinds of entertainment programs,
and also make acquaintances and alliances of various kinds.
Thus these functions are also a vehicle of social, business
or political interaction.

The region is not highly urbanized. Based on the 1980
census of India, the 1990 estimated population of Guwahati,
the largest city in the region, was only 484 thousand [Atlas
of India 1990]. As a consequence of the small size of the
community, other people and their opinions become a force to
reckon with. As I was growing up in Assam, a phrase I heard
incessantly was "people will speak ill (of you)" (manuhe
beya bulibo). The importance of the approval of others is
embodied into a person through everyday conversation and
decisions. One of my favorite examples in this context is
in deciding what to wear. I remember being told many times
that it is irrelevant how I think I look in a particular
garment. It is how others think I look in it that is
important. This notion is very different from the general
idea of individual expression so common in the United
States. This is probably because, in the Assamese context,
when people say something negative about somebody, it
reflects badly not only on the individual involved, but on

the entire family. Conversely, people speaking well of one

63
enhances family name and family prestige. The approval of
others is very important especially in times of arranging
marriages. Marriage proposals are often evaluated in terms
of reports of trusted friends, acquaintances and neighbors,
who label a girl or a boy as "good" or "not very good" ("not
very good" usually connoting "bad"). Such reports can make
or destroy a marriage negotiation.

Family name and prestige represents an area of constant
concern and these are often subtly publicized through one’s
children. Two arenas where this is played out, especially
in the urban areas is in children’s high scores in
examinations and in their obedient behavior. Most parents
are therefore very involved in their children’s performance
in school. Besides enhancing the family name, being a good
student indicates a good job in the future, which in turn
signifies good marriage prospects. This is especially true
for boys, and parents are very concerned about their sons’
economic prospects. Obedience to elders, especially
parents, is a virtue most parents strive to inculcate in
their children. Parents of obedient (badhya) children are
often commended on their good fortune (bhagya). Obedient
children are seen as one of the building blocks for the
cultural ideal of a well knit and cohesive family.
Conflicts between family members invites speculation and
gossip and speaks ill of family honor.

Children are a source of well being as well as

64
distress for the family. Sons are the chief source of
support for parents in their old age. Parents therefore
have many expectations regarding their sons, especially the
oldest son, the chief among them being obedience, loyalty
and economic stability. A daughter, on the other hand, is
raised with the expectation that she will be given away in
marriage to another family. Hence, her entire socialization
revolves around pleasing others and in bringing honor to her
natal family by making herself loved, cherished, and admired
in her husband’s home. Failure to please her in-laws
reflect badly on her upbringing and on her mother's
training.

Concerns about a son’s loyalty and obedience become
especially important after a son marries. The wife is seen
as a constant threat to a man’s allegiance to his mother and
sisters. The cultural norms state that a woman gets totally
incorporated into her husband’s family at marriage --- all
ties to her father’s family are ritually severed during the
wedding ceremony. But at the everyday behavioral level she
is often considered an outsider by the immediate members of
her new family, who are suspicious of her hold on her
husband.

A girl’s status changes at marriage from that of a
daughter to a daughter-in-law. This entails overnight
behavioral changes as she now has to conduct herself in ways

appropriate for a daughter-in-law . She is expected to be

65
of service to everyone in her new family, and be
subservient, especially to people older than her husband.
She is usually under constant surveillance and judgement by
the members of her husband’s family. Parents often make a
conceptual distinction between a daughter (jiyori) and
daughter-in-law (bowari), treating the daughter with utmost
indulgence and the daughter-in-law with stringent rules.
These rules spread across different spheres --- everyday
speech and behavior, freedom to go out of the house without
permission, and even clothes. I talked to a woman whose
eighteen year old daughter-in-law was forbidden from wearing
anything else except a sari or its Assamese equivalent, the
mekhla chaddar while her twenty four year old daughter
always wore non—Assamese and even western clothes.

Such behavioral and conceptual distinctions generate
culturally specific stress areas and contradictions. A
close knit family is the ideal family, but inherent in the
afamily structure are sources of conflict --- especially
between mothers-in-laws and daughters-in-law and between
wives of brothers. As sons and brothers acquire wives, who
come from different families, the potential for suspicion,
jealousy, competition, and even hatred between them appears.
These often get magnified by interferences by other family
members or by affines.

Conflict within a family, though attributed to

quarrelsome members, are often seen to have an underlying

66

cause like someone’s bad mantras or evil eye or bad
planetary configuration behind it. Significantly, such
conflicts are also sometimes seen to be the cause of other
problems. The sheer force of another person’s continual
hatred or ill-will, for e.g., is often thought to have the
power to bring illness or misfortune to the person on whom
the ill-will is directed. Family members are also often
suspected of deliberately causing harm to others because of

malice, with the help of mantras.

"Doing mantras" in Assam. As already mentioned in Chapter
1, various terms are associated with "doing mantras" in
Asgam --— bej, ojha, dhanantari, vaidya, and Tantric.) In
this chapter I want to discuss these conceptualizations
further in the light of my conversations with my informants.
(The distinction between the bej and ojha is primarily a
geographic one —--the word bej is used more in Upper Assam,
while ojha is used in Lower AssamF) The word Dhanwantari
(arrow-moving) in Indian mythology refers to a deity who is
the god of medicine. The system of Ayurveda is attributed
to him. In some myths he is called the conquerer of the
malignant power of the serpents. The title of Dhanwantari
was also borne by more than one historical physician [Walker
1968a:274]. In Assam, there are legends of one physician,
who was so skilled that he came to be called Dhanantari (the

Assamese pronunciation of the word). His specialty was

67
treating poison, especially snake poison, which is the most
common and deadly form of poison in the region. Hence,
people who treated poison started calling themselves
Dhanantari. These are the same people who are also called
bej, ojha and vaidya. All these terms are sometimes
subsumed under the term asuri treatment (chikitsa). The
term asuri chikitsa refers to treatment not in accordance
with the conventional medical system, and is used especially
in contrast to Ayurveda, which is seen to follow a
prescribed set of rules, techniques and training program.)
However, not too many people can relate to this term. Some
have heard it, but associate it with demons (asuras), to
whom they see greedy bej and ojhas being affiliated.

(The difference between bej, ojha, dhanantari, and
vaidya mainly lies in what these terms connote, which in
turn stems from the source of these practitioner’s
knowledge. Broadly speaking, two types of practitioners can
be distinguished --- those with a special supernatural power
(shakti) of their own and those who depend only on their
books for their knowledge. Practitioners who deal only with
books get results because of their experience in diagnosing
from symptoms and in their ability to harness the power
inherent in the words by saying the right mantra with the
right procedure and pronunciation> In the case of
practitioners with supernatural shakti, their personal power

is used along with the power in the mantra. Their personal

68
power is often a degree of spiritual enlightenment which
they have achieved. This often gives them siddhi (spiritual
success) in particular mantras so that the mantras work
especially well when said by them. Often they do not even
need to say the entire mantra. Other practitioners said
that their shakti is a devata, a being that either came
inside them periodically, or just stayed with them all the
time. The term devata, according to the Assamese dictionary
stands for a deity, who can be either a god, or a spirit,
including an evil spirit. It is hard to ascertain the
nature of the beings that gives the practitioner his shakti
as most of the practitioners were reluctant to discuss them
with me. Whatever the kind of shakti, it is obtained only
after a great deal of supernatural exercises (sadhana). The
term sadhana is a concept with many related meanings. The
Assamese-English Dictionary defines it as the act of
worshiping, as well as solicitation, entreaty, or endeavor
to attain an object. In the religious context too, it is
used in diverse ways. Bharati [1965] variously defines the
term as contemplative exercises, spiritual disciplines,
spiritual exercises, exercises for final vision, mode of
worship, ritualistic procedures, religious exercise, yogic
practice, all in the same book. Associated with the word
sadhana is the word siddhi, which Bharati again variously
defines as desired success, occult success and spiritual

powers. I use the word sadhana to mean exercises and

69
practices directed towards the attainment of some
supernatural goal. I use siddhi to mean the attainment of
special powers or supernatural success by a practitioner. I
found through my conversations with practitioners and
clients that siddhi can be of various forms --- an
enlightened view of reality, or competence in particular
mantras, or control over supernatural beings.

The clients I talked to did not seem to care very much
about the nature of the beings that a practitioner claimed
to control, but some of the practitioners did.(:There seemed
to be a value judgement between adhyatmic (Spiritual,
pertaining to the gods) and bhoutic (pertaining to ghosts
and spirits) sources of shakti. Practitioners who claimed
to have spiritual shakti saw themselves at a higher level
because their power came directly from the gods. According
to them, lower level practitioners need to keep ghosts and
spirits to do their work for them. They are more likely to
give in to greed or malice and cause harm to others:> There
is also the idea that the higher level practitioners rarely
need the knowledge of bejali puthis --- the local level
texts. These texts are often associated with bad mantras.
Dealing exclusively with such texts suggests limitations in
knowledge and judgement. Many practitioners who had started
out by inheriting these books and their knowledge from their
fathers or relatives have built up on this book knowledge by

earning supernatural powersi)

70

Though all these categories fall under the label of the
supernatural, none of these distinctions are absolute. I see
them in terms of a supernatural continuum, with the most
spiritual practitioners placed at one end, the least
spiritual ones, whose power comes from ghosts and spirits in
the middle, and those with only book knowledge and no
special shakti or siddhi (spiritual success) at the other
end. Many practitioners perceived themselves in terms of
such a continuum, and those who saw themselves at the higher
end tended to look down on the others.

Some practitioners, especially the "higher level" ones,
object to being called bej. This is because the term bej,
in the present times, connotes unscrupulousness, greed, and
harmful mantras. One reason for this is the association of
the word bej and the practice of bejali with a place called
Mayong, located about twenty miles east of Guwahati. The
word Mayong has assumed a sense of notoriety and has become
synonymous with evil mantras. Both bej and mantras from
Mayong (Mayongiya bej, mayongiya mantra) are feared all over
Assam. In the following section I will elaborate on the
cultural conceptualization of Mayong and its role in the

connotation of the practice of mantras in Assam.

Mayong. Administratively, Mayong refers to one village in
the Nowgong district of Assam --- Roja Mayong. But Mayong,

in the context of bejali, connotes the entire area,

71

consisting of about ten to twelve villages around Roja
Mayong. People of this area talk about the "jungles of
Mayong" (Mayongor jonghol) --- the isolated, forest area
which is cut off from the rest of Assam for seven months of
the year, due to floods. The area is quite out of the way,
situated in one corner of the district, with very poor road
communication. The railway line and the national highway
are at a distance from this area. It was the region as a
whole rather than a specific village that gained prominence

for its mischievous bejali.

Legends of Mayong= As I talked with people in Assam, it was
apparent that most of the information about Mayong was in
the form of legends and stories --- very few people had any
real experiences of the "power" of a bej from Mayong.(One of
the most common stories circulating about Mayong is that
these bej have the power of controlling others --— they can
keep a person with them forever, making the person forget
his or her past life, affiliations, family and friends, and
blindly follow that bej. The first reaction of most people
I talked to regarding my intention of visiting Mayong was an
attempt to discourage me from going there. I was told
stories of how these bej just had to show a person a flower,
and the person would become his slave. I was told never to
go there alone, and to beware of young men. The bej from

Mayong were supposedly experts in Mohini mantras --- mantras

72
used to infatuate others. Tales are told of bej who use
Mohini mantras on young men to keep them in Mayong, either
as husbands for their daughters or just as their servants.
Women are also said to know such mantras, which they use on
men. Hence the fear, that if one goes to Mayong he never
comes back. Brojen Sharma, an ojha who lived in Mayong for
a few months, told me that the secrets of Mayong are not
taught easily to outsiders. But if an outsider is married
to a woman from Mayong, they often give him access to most
of their knowledgei) Punya Barua, a high school teacher from
a town about a hundred miles away from Mayong, had heard
stories about Mayong from her great uncle, who had learnt
bejali in Mayong. (He was taught most of their secrets by a
woman there with the expectation that he would marry her.
When his training was over, though, he managed to run away
before the marriage could take place. Though his guru from
Mayong could not get him back, she did use her powers on
him, so that he could not get married to anyone else either
-—— he stayed unmarried all his life)

These bej supposedly had the capacity to turn human
beings into spirits, tigers, goats, or anything else they
wanted to. Nibaron Das, a 92 year old resident of Roja
Mayong, told me that he had himself seen a bej turn a tiger
into a bird. He also spoke of bej who could "tie up"
(immobilize) tigers using mantras. Dharmeshwar Goswami, a

practitioner who lives in a village near Roja Mayong said

73

that the most common way of immobilizing tigers was by using
pain-causing mantras (bikhali-baan). There seems to be a
lot of association of Mayong’s bej with tigers. The forests
of Mayong had tigers in the past, that would often eat the
villager’s cattle. The bej helped in capturing these
tigers. Brojen Sharma, as well as various other people,
have told me about bej who could turn themselves into
tigers, giants, and other beings. None of them, except
Brojen Sharma, claim to have actually seen such bej but
stories abound of how they turned themselves into tigers,
harmed others, and changed back to humans again. One of the
requisites of such transformation was that the bej who had
changed himself into a tiger (or any other being) needed
another bej to rechange him into a human being, as he
himself was incapable of chanting the mantra in the form he
had assumed. But often, these days, the stand-by bej either
out of malice, or out of ignorance do not do the rechange in
the proper way. Hence, a lot of bej have permanently been
trapped in these non-human forms and have either gone into
the forest or have been captured for circuses or zoos.

Anecdotes also abound about people of Mayong using
mantras to do mischievous tricks to scare and impress
strangers. The most common stories are about piras (a low
stool used to sit on) sticking to people’s bottoms when they
try to get up, fingers getting stuck to people’s mouths

while eating, creating fish and other food ingredients out

74
of bamboo or cane, making food ingredients dance in front of
the stranger’s eyesz, etc. Another common story is about
bej who could stop moving objects. Dharmeshwar Goswami
told me that he knew a bej who could stand in front of a
charging wild bull, raise his hand, chant a mantra, and the
bull would stop. I have also often heard about bej who can
apparently make cars moving at high speed come to a complete
halt3.

The bej from Mayong are said to be unscrupulous and
wicked --- they supposedly oblige clients by doing anything
for the right price. A very common fear about these bej is
that they take money from jealous mischief makers and cause
brides and grooms to make fools of themselves by dancing all
through the solemn wedding ceremony; sometimes, the bridal
couple are made unconscious. Ranjan Barua, a bio-chemist,
told me he had seen a bride, who was hale and hearty one
minute, become unconscious and deranged the next --- all due
to the bad mantras (kn-mantras) of a bej. These bej are said
to be able to cause illnesses, set ghosts (biras) on
people’s houses, cause a person to be infatuated with

another, ruin entire families, and even kill people‘.

Mayong in the present times. Mayong today is no different

from any other village in Assam. Roja Mayong has a police
station, a dispensary, a higher secondary school, and a

bank. When I went there, I did not see any magic or tricks.

75

There were about two or three people in the village who knew
mantras, which is common in most Assamese villages. The
people of Mayong laughed when I told them that I had heard
that everyone in Mayong is a bej, that children there learn
bejali right from the cradle, and that grandparents in
Mayong played with their grandchildren by showing them
bejali tricks. They told me that the legends might have
been true in the past, but such bejali is not seen anymore.
Even if anyone still has such mantras, they do not openly
admit it, as the bejali of Mayong (Mayongiya bejali) has
earned a bad reputation. I was also told that a lot of the
bej who knew such mantras died without teaching their skill
to anyone, and hence what they knew is lost forever. The
younger generation is often not too keen to carry on the
bejali tradition, as it involves hard work and restrictions.
Dharmeshwar Goswami complained about this to me. He said
that he had discarded his bad mantras a long time ago, so
all he has now are the good ones. He keeps offering to
teach this knowledge to his nephews, but nobody is
interested. He is afraid that the knowledge which has
existed in his family for generations is going to die out
after his death.

There is also a widespread idea that the bej have
become greedy, and have brought about their own downfall.
It is said that if a bej starts taking money for his

services, his mantras will not work. I have also been told

76

that most bej who do bad mantras end up lame, sickly, and
their children never prosper. And if a bej does very wicked
things, his entire family perishes (bonsho noroi)5. I met
several people who said they used to do bejali in the past,
but had given up the practice for fear of the consequences.
They all claimed that though they never did any bad mantras,
they were afraid of unwittingly harming someone, and thus

bringing about harm to themselves and to their family.

Special§y ef Mayong. Besides Mayong, there had been
other pockets in Assam where tantra-mantra was rumored to
have been practiced --- Garigaon at the outskirts of
Guwahati, Lahorighat near Guwahati, and some pockets in the
Goalpara district in the north bank of the Brahmaputra, to
name a few. But none of these places gained prominence as
Mayong did. Most people have never heard of these places.
I have heard some people in Guwahati say that the people of
Garigaon are wicked (dusto), but no one could really tell me
why. The general idea was that they were not to be trusted.
But there is usually no association with mantras, though
there was supposedly a bej para (locality of bej) at
Garigaon in the past. I

It was Mayong that became synonymous with mantras all
over Assam . One of the questions I asked people who knew

something about Mayong was, why did Mayong become so famous,

even though there were bej in other places too? The most

77
frequent answer was that they knew very bad mantras, and the
most common emotion associated with Mayong is that of fear;/
The bej there are seen to be able to control people’s minds,
using various kinds of mohini mantras (mantras used to
infatuate). The bej are also seen as greedy, taking money
from clients to harm others.(:According to Nibaron Das, the
bej themselves helped in propagating notions of their
. uniqueness and power to the outside world. They often
played clever tricks to impress outsiders. And as Mayong
was so isolated, it was easy to create myths and keep them
going. Nobody is sure how this knowledge came to Mayong.
It is speculated that at one time, possibly because of its
isolation, a lot of people used to come to the forests of
Mayong to find spiritual fulfillment. The people of Mayong
might have picked up mantras from them, started using them,
and passed this knowledge down from generation to
generation. And by not teaching these mantras easily to,
outsiders, they cultivated an aura of secrecy associated
with Mayongiya mantras (mantras from Mayong))> It is
possible that some people who set off for Mayong from other
parts of Assam to learn mantras often did not go back home.
But according to Nibaron Das, this was not necessarily
because they had been "kept" back in Mayong by bej, but
because they had probably been killed by wild animals, on
way to Mayong or on their way back. But such instances

helped in creating legends and fears. The isolation of the

78

I-
I

{place as well as the its inaccessibility to the rest of
“Assam for a large part of the year due to floods helped in
maintaining the esotericity of Mayong.>

I was also told that the bej from Mayong were experts
in indrajala . The Assamese Dictionary defines indrajala as
a net of mantras (jala meaning net), magic, jugglery and
illusion. The word indrajala, literally, the net of Indra,
is associated with the god Indra, who casts his net of magic
over his adversaries [Goudriaan 1978:14]. Indra, in spite
of being a god did not always use his powers in an honest
way, and the malicious side of his character are brought
into focus in some Vedic texts [Goudriaanzl978]. In his
study of magic and its religious foundations in Sanskrit
texts, Goudriaan [1978] states that the god Indra has been
conceived of as a great magician, who was able to trick his
enemies by their own weapons, for these enemies also
possessed this supranormal gift. Indra, by conjuring up
appearances, changing himself into all kinds of beings,
human as well as animal, succeeded in murdering his enemies,
seducing women, and winning riches and glory. The
supranormal powers displayed by the god for his ends were
felt as exemplary for the human community and attainable by
those who sought to imitate them. Goudriaan goes on to say
that

the association of Indra with earthly magic

appears from the very name given to the

performance of occult feats by magicians in
Sanskrit : indrajalam "Indra’s net". Sometimes

79

this word is used in a broad sense which can be

more or less equated with the English "magic". In

other places its use is restricted to the

performance of spectacular feats like jugglery or

the creation of phantasms [Goudriaan 1978:2131.

The word indrajala appears in the Atharvaveda, as well
as in various tantric texts. It is not possible to know for
sure how Mayong came to be associated with this term.

Though informants talked of the existence of a text called
Indrajala Tantra, used by many bej from Mayong, at least in
the past, I was not successful in locating the text
anywhere. Goudriaan [1978] discusses an edited volume
called Indrajalavidyasamagraha, "Compendium of the Magical
Science" (ed. J. Vidyasagar"s Sons, Calcutta 1915), which
brings together several “magical" texts, including one
called Indrajalam. He states that the text "seems entirely
to consist of quotations from other sources; in its present
form its consultation seems useless" [Goudriaan 1978: 256].

Dharmeshwar Goswami told me he knew some of the "magic"
that the bej did to impress people. When I asked him to
show me some of the things he could do, he laughed and said
it was only bheleki (jugglery). Nripen Goswami, a
practitioner from the area also saw a lot of these feats as
bheleki, and said that he never does such "low" things.
Very few bej from Mayong admit to doing bheleki, though
people connect them with the feat, and mistrust them because
of it.

The sense of mistrust and fear linked with Mayong is

80
the main reason Mayongiya bejali is looked down upon and
seen to be of a "lower" level. Bej are seen to wield
immense power which they often use to deceive, and, if
annoyed or angered, to deliberately hurt or destroy their
victim.

In my discussions with informants, it was apparent that
people in general do not question the power of mantras very
much. Most of them told me that words, when properly used
and pronounced by the right person have the power to achieve
anything in the world. It is not mantras they disbelieve_--
- they mistrust many of the people who claim to do mantras
these days. A journalist in Guwahati told me that he did
not believe in bej as there were no real bej anymore.
Nibaron Das told me that during his lifetime of nearly
hundred years, he has seen the practice of bejali
deteriorate. His father was a very well known bej and
people came to him from nearby areas for treatment and help.
He even had a sort of hospital set up at one corner of their
large compound, where he used to keep sick patients
overnight if they needed special attention, all free of
charge. He never thought of personal gain, and selflessly
served others. But such bej are not to be seen anymore.
Bejali, according to him has become a profession now, the
main aim of which is to exploit others. He said that
exploitative bej existed in the past too, but now they are

more so. He said that he does not trust bej any more,

81
especially those from Mayong as he has seen how deceptive
they are. He also expressed anger at the clients who are
gullible enough to get deceived. What is significant here
is that it is not people’s belief in the efficacy of mantras
that he is reacting against, but against what the practice
of bejali, especially Mayongiya bejali [bejali from Mayong]

has been reduced to.

NOTES

1. In many parts of India, one reason why marriage
negotiations fail to materialize in the final stages is
due to disputes over the amount of dowry demanded by
the bridegroom’s family. Cantlie suggests a similar
situation is Assam when she states that "the
bridegroom’s family are often in a position to demand
substantial sums of dowry including, in some cases, the
cost of education abroad" [Cantlie 1984:59]. In my
experience, though, I have never heard of dowry demands
by Assamese. In fact, one of the ways Assamese
distinguish themselves from Bengalis and other North
Indians is by pointing out the non-existence of the
dowry system in Assam. Though her description and
analysis of marriage in Assam is excellent, she seems
to have been misinformed on this point.

2. Brojen Sharma told me that when he first went to
Mayong, a Brahmin family there invited him for a meal.
As he does not eat food cooked by others, the family
provided him with the ingredients for him to cook his
meal. As he started getting his meal ready, he asked
his hosts for some green chilies. They told him the
chilies would come to him. As he went back to his
cooking, he saw about fifteen green chilies come
dancing towards him. He had heard of such stories
about Mayong, which made him all the more scared, but
he bravely covered the chilies with a large bowl. SOon
after, a young girl of the family came to him and

82

requested him to remove the bowl. She was the one who
had done the mantra to make the chilies dance so as to
scare him. But now that he had covered the chilies with
the bowl, her entire body was burning. Sharma said he
removed the bowl only after she promised never to play
tricks on him again. He also talked of another
instance where, when eating his meal at the home of
another family, his fingers got stuck to his mouth. As
he unsuccessfully tried to pull them out, he heard
snickering in the other room. His fingers stayed stuck
for about fifteen minutes.

An engineer, working with the Flood Control Department
of the Government of Assam, who was temporarily
stationed at Mayong, told me of a bej who claimed to be
able to stop his car. When I tried to get hold of that
particular bej, however, I was told by his family that
he had gone to visit relatives in another village and
would not be back for about two months. Brojen Sharma
also spoke of a bej, now dead, who would stand in the
middle of the road, chant a mantra on some dust picked
up from the ground, throw the dust in front of a fast
moving car, and the car would come to a standstill,
unable to move. Sharma had wanted to learn that mantra
from that bej, but the bej refused to teach him. When
I asked Nibaron Das about such claims, he said that he
has not seen such feats in his entire ninety-two years
of living in Mayong.

Nibaron Das gave me some examples of fatal mantras
still being practiced in Mayong. According to him,
there is one mantra, still in secret circulation, which
is to be chanted while tying a knot on the soft bark of
a particular tree. The bark is then thrown on the
ground, and if a cow eats it, the person, in whose name
the mantra was chanted, will become ill and die.
Another mantra, which when chanted in a person’s name,
while poking needles on a banana tree can cause the
person to be killed or injured. Both Punya Barua and
Brojen Sharma told me of a practice in which the bej
chant mantras on an empty earthen water-pot, then drop
the pot in water. The person whose name had been
chanted in the mantra will have water accumulating in
his or her body. As the pot will take in more and more
water, the person’s stomach will also keep getting
bigger. Unless the pot is taken out of the water in
time, the person can eventually die of excessive fluid
in the body. There is another similar practice,
according to Punya Barua, in which mantras are done to
the pot, but the pot is made to gradually get dry. She
did not know the details of this practice, but she had
heard that as the pot gets drier, the person also keeps

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"drying". Eventually the person can get to the stage
when he or she is just skin and bones, and might
eventually die.

Brojen Sharma told me about a bej who used to do bad
mantras. He had two sons, and both died within a month
of each other. The father was so devastated that he
stopped doing bejali. Dharmeshwar Goswami told me of a
concert that had been organized two or three years ago
in his village. The performers had been brought from a
nearby town. There was a bad man (kut-manuh) in the
audience, and he did mantras on the performers. Whoever
went up to the stage found himself unable to speak or
move. The entire party of performers had to be put on
a car and taken home. They were in such a state that a
bej had to be called to cure them. After the incident,
there was an enquiry in the village, and this man was
suspected. When he was brought before the council, at
the community prayer hall, he confessed to having done
it. He said he had learned that mantra from someone
and wanted to see if it worked. The council then made
him eat human excreta as a punishment, and take an oath
that he would never use mantras again. Six months
later, the man died.

CHAPTER 4

THE PRACTITIONERS

This chapter addresses the first component of the
cultural schema of doing mantras --- the practitioners. In
chapter 1, I had discussed the cultural logic underlying the
practice -—- that the right mantra said by the right person
in the right way generates a power. Here, I examine twelve
of these "right persons" so as to get a sense of their
backgrounds, their qualities, their "power", their
perceptions of themselves vis a vis others in the practice,
as well as similarities and differences between them.

As stated in Chapter 3, some practitioners make
distinctions between themselves in terms of levels. In
this Chapter, I use their conceptualization of levels to
categorize practitioners so as to give an idea of the
similarities and differences between them. This
categorization is based on a cultural idea that the
practitioners are powerful because they have some form of
supernatural training. The minimum of this training is the
knowledge of the right technique of chanting the mantras in
their books so as to activate the power inherent, but latent
in those mantras. This knowledge gives them a degree of
supernatural power. Other practitioners go beyond this

first level and embody some kind of supernatural power

84

85
within themselves through various forms of exercises
(sadhana). For some, this supernatural power is in the
form of supernatural beings who get embodied into the person
either permanantly or periodically. These supernatural
beings may be either bhoutic (pertaining to ghosts and
spirits) or adhyatmic (pertaining to gods). There are still
other practitioners who do not have any beings, but who say
that their spiritual exercises have given them spiritual
enlightenment. Placing them in a supernatural continuum as
suggested in Chapter 3, I divide the practitioners I talked
to into three groups --- those who have achieved some form
of spiritual enlightenment, those with a special
supernatural being of their own, and those who only use
books. In this chapter, I discuss the practitioners

according to this categorization.

PRACTITIONERS WITH SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT.

Four practitioners are discussed in this category. All
of them claim to have some form of spiritual enlightenment
or spiritual success (siddhi) in particular mantras, which
they see as the source of their power. They also claim that
their spirituality keeps them away from greed and malice,

and enables them to be able to judge right from wrong.

Ameresh Chakraberty. Amaresh Chakrabarty is a retired

principal of a high school in Guwahati. He is seventy four

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years old, a bachelor, and lives with his brother, Samaresh
and his brother’s family. The household consists of
Amaresh, Samaresh, Samaresh’s wife, his sons and their wives
and children, all living together in a small, two-roomed
flat.

Amaresh Chakrabarty got into religion at the age of
fourteen, when he had his thread ceremony. He became a
tyagi (renouncer), did not marry, and upto this day, does
not wear shoes on his feet. Following the teachings of his
guru, he eventually became a tantric worshipper. He
inherited most of his healing texts from his father, who
taught him the mantras in the texts. A few of his mantras
though, he said, he received directly from goddess Kali,
during his Tantric spiritual exercises (sadhana).

He came to Assam in 1948 from Bengal during the
partition of India, when, being a teacher, he was given the
choice to go to East Pakistan, or stay in India. His
younger brother was working in Guwahati in the Railways, so
Amaresh moved to Guwahati. He had brought with him an idol
of the goddess Kali, which he and his brother installed
under a broken piece of tin roofing in front of his
brother’s house. He started helping people with their
problems in front of the idol, under the piece of tin
roofing. People started worshipping the idol, and a month
later, there was a proper roof over it, and walls around it,

with material and labor donated by the neighbors. Soon

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after he reached Guwahati, he got a job as a teacher.
During that period, he could only do mantras before and
after school hours --- till about nine in the morning, and
then again from about four in the afternoon till the last
client was gone. Sometimes there were so many people that
he was unable to get away till about eleven at night. After
he retired from teaching, he started doing it full time ---
from six in the morning till about noon, then again from
four or five in the afternoon.

As his name began to get known, the number of clients
also increased. Besides, he was also beginning to get
older. So, after his brother retired from service, Amaresh
initiated him and taught him almost all his mantras. Now
the two brothers work together everyday. Having Samaresh
there is also a necessity in recent years, as Amaresh,
having lost a lot of teeth is getting harder to understand.
Most of the time, Samaresh ends up having to translate
whatever his older brother is saying for the client’s
benefit. In my own conversations with Amaresh too, I always
found it convenient to have his brother around as a
translator.

Both brothers insist that Amaresh Chakrabarty’s "line"
(of work) is involved in serving others. He does not harm
others, nor does he push somebody into danger. He also does
not demand any money. People give him whatever they want to

give. This is something that I observed also. When the‘

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clients were ready to leave, they would touch his feet, and
put some money in the top pocket of his shirt. Amaresh
would not even look at the money then, and had therefore no
way of knowing who has given him what.

The brothers have a ticketing system to manage their
massive clientele. The clients get a ticket number as soon
as they reach there, and they get attended to in numerical
order. He also has a sign in the temple which says that
only fifty tickets will be given out every half of the day
(bela). But most of the days I was there, I saw that the
fifty tickets got exhausted by 10 A.M. But people would
still keep coming by, and the brothers would attend to all
of them, and would be with clients till about two in the
afternoon. They attend to an average of a hundred clients a
day, squatting on the floor, with the clients squatting
around them. Often, Samaresh had to shout at the swarm of
clients to keep order. Amaresh Chakrabarty’s skill is known
even outside Guwahati. People of all religions, and
speaking different languages, come to him from all over
Assam. When I asked him the reason for his popularity, he
said that people knew that his "line" never harmed people.
He only tried to get rid of their difficulties (asubidha bor
door kore). He also said that he was honest about his
capabilities. If something was beyond his capacities, he
frankly said so. I have seen him do that -— he has

frequently sent back clients, referring them to doctors, a

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lot of times even telling them which doctor they should go
to.

Clients came to him for illnesses as well as all kinds
of other problems. I have talked to people whose families
have been coming there for the last forty years. A lot of
regulars would bring their children there first, in case of
fevers, upset stomachs and other common ailments, instead of
going to a doctor. During exam time, I saw hundreds of
mothers and children come in to get pens and bottles of ink
chanted-on for better writing power. For a lot of people
Amaresh is the family physician, counsellor and problem
solver all combined. Stories abound about the childless
women who got children with the help of Amaresh’s mantras,
even after doctors declared failure in helping them
conceive.

Their clients referred to them as bej, ojha, or
Tantric. Neither of them minded being called these names.
They said that the nomenclature was irrelevant. What was
important to them was the fact that they have been able to
help hundreds of people with their problems, and their
clients kept coming back precisely because they got relief
from whatever they were suffering from.

Neither of them have any beings to help them in their
work. Amaresh has siddhi (spiritual success) in particular
mantras, which makes those mantras very efficacious when

said by him. The mantras will work for him even if he makes

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mistakes in the recitation (which he sometimes does these
days, due to his advancing years). Samaresh, on the other
hand, has to be very careful in the recitation, as any
mistakes will not only make the mantra useless, but might
even harm him or his family. Both brothers have a small
piece of bone though, ritualistically obtained from the
cremation ground, which they hold in their hand while
chanting particular mantras. It is a Tantric device to make

those mantras more powerful.

Dayanand Trivedi. Dayanand Trivedi is a high ranking
government official, posted in Assam. He is a licensed
homeopath, but does not practice homeopathy. He heals
through mantras and claims to have treated about five
million people. He comes from a neighboring state, where he
holds regular sessions at his home city, treating five to
six hundred peOple a day, free of charge. Now that he is
away in Assam, two of his disciples are carrying on his work
there. Some members of his Guwahati staff, who had
accompanied him to his home city told me that shops have
come up around his home to cater to the large number of
people who come to him to be healed. These shops provide
food for people awaiting their turn to see him, as well as
things they might need for the session -- bottles of oil,
water, amulets, which would be potentized during the

session.

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Thakur said that he got initiated into spiritual life
about twenty seven years ago, after which his outlook in
life changed completely. Before initiation, he had a very
materialistic attitude towards life. After initiation, he
developed an attitude of doing good to others, some amount
of desirelessness (his word), and a sense of surrender to
the divine. It was this feeling of doing good to others
that made him interested in the power of mantras. A lot of
his clients told me that he is a Tantric practitioner, but
he denies it. Some have called him a bej which he also
denies. He said that there is no specific name to what he
does, but he sometimes calls it "mantra therapy". He does
it as a hobby, and not as a profession. During his
extensive tours to remote parts of India, he came across
people who seemingly performed miracles, using mantras.
Most of these people did such "miracles" only for
entertainment and for money. He decided to use mantras so
as to help people, by curing illnesses instantaneously, and
free of cost.

Trivedi told me that he has been doing intense research
in "mantra therapy", for the last twenty five years. The
basis of mantra therapy, according to him, is phonetics (his
word). The words in the mantra often do not mean anything.
Even if they do have meaning, understanding what the words
mean is not important. He has mantras in languages that he

does not understand --- Swahili, Arabic, Persian, Malay,

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Bahasa (Indonesian), and various Indian languages.
According to him, it is not the meaning of the words, but
the combination of the sound units that creates the power.
Each combination of words creates a particular vibration
when recited in the right way, and it is this vibration that
cures the patient. But to get a vibration that is potent
enough, the knowledge has to come from a guru who is
competent (siddha) in that mantra. He used the example of
classical music to explain this point. Though the notes are
written down, music cannot really be picked up from booksr
A good teacher is needed to show exactly how those notes
have to be reproduced. In the case of mantras too, it is
the guru who introduces the notes, the right inflections of
tone, into the voice of the disciple, so as to get the exact
vibration. According to him, the right vibrations are like
a missile on a target --- they hit the target and bring
about the desired result.

He said that mantras can be used for both good and
evil purposes. Because they can be immensely powerful
tools, a guru has to be very careful in choosing who to pass
on his knowledge. The prospective disciple is often tested
by the guru in various ways on his strength of mind and his
attitude towards others. All mantras are not taught to
everybody. Trivedi has taught a few mantras to one of his
subordinate officers, Prakash, who helps him in his healing

sessions. Prakash told me that he had no prior experience

93
with mantras before he met Trivedi. But now that he has
seen people being healed by his mantras, he will continue
practicing them, even when he is no longer working for
Trivedi.

Trivedi said that he is continuously learning new
mantras from people who are practicing them and who are
prepared to teach him. He already has thousands of mantras,
but is always on the lookout for new mantras to add to his
collection. He experiments with mantras and tries to come
up with the best mantra for each problem. The difference
between his mantras and the mantras of other practitioners,
according to him, is that his mantras give immediate
results. He has about ten or twenty mantras for each
ailment. If one fails to give instant results, he uses
another one. He said that the key to selecting the right
mantra is in understanding the slightest variation in the
manifestation of the same illness. For example, a particular
mantra may be more effective for a particular kind of
headache than other headache mantras, and will therefore
give faster results. One mantra may work better if a
problem is hereditary, while another may work better for the
same problem if there is no hereditary connection. He
therefore has to quickly discern, decide and select the
right mantra, and he does this by getting detailed
information on the patient’s symptoms and illness history.

His background in homeopathy helps him in diagnosing throngh

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symptoms and causes and connecting them to mantras. Most
practitioners, according to him, do not have the vast pool
of mantras that he has. They usually have only one or two
general mantras for an ailment, and not specific mantras for
variations of the same ailment. Hence, they cannot always
produce instant results. The quality of the mantra is also
important. The vibrations produced by some mantras are more
powerful than others. Thakur said that years of research
and experience has enabled him to sort out the most powerful
mantras, which he now uses. Besides, he has siddhi
(spiritual success) in particular mantras, as a result of
which he does not even need to recite the entire mantra.
These mantras are therefore more efficacious and act faster.

As I sat through his healing sessions, I saw that he
does seem to be able to provide instant relief. He treats
by chanting mantras and blowing into or hitting the sick
part of the client’s body. Sometimes he would hit the
afflicted part so hard that the client, especially if he or
she is frail, would stagger. Sometimes he would hold the
client’s arm or wrist so hard while chanting the mantra,
that the client would wince in pain. When I asked him why
he held so tightly, he said that his hold was not tight at
all —-- it was the mantra going into the person’s body and
acting on the affliction that gave the client a temporary
feeling of pain. He blew, hit, massaged, slapped the mantra

into the person’s body. He also uses other mediums for the

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mantra, the two most common being water and oil. Mantras
are chanted on a bottle of water or oil, brought by the
client, and given back to the client to take home. The
water is to be ingested and bathed with, while the oil is
for external uses like rubbing on joints or other painful
parts of the body. He said that the need for a medium is
because the mantra often needs to get inside the person
several times a day, but people cannot come to him everyday.
Hence, he keeps the treatment going through the medium.
Some mantras need specific mediums. The mantra for diabetes
needs sealing wax to contain it --- the client has to wear a
lump of potentized wax as an amulet. Some mantras are
chanted into amulets of brass or other metal. A brass plate
with mantras chanted on it is needed for sciatica pain, and
the client’s back needs to touch the plate for sometime each
day.

Mantras, according to Trivedi, act on everything ---
nature, human beings, planets, animals. Hence they can
solve all kinds of life problems. But he confines his work
to only to curing bodily illnesses, as, dealing with
people’s life problems may create complications in his role

as a government official.

Satyen Goswami. Satyen Goswami is a high school teacher, a
priest, an astrologer, and also does mantras. He has long

hair, long beard, and dresses in a dhoti and shirt, often

96

saffron colored, thus giving the impression a very religious
person. He lives at the top of a hill, with a path leading
up to the house. The path gets rather precarious,
especially when it rains, but that does not stop the stream
of clients climbing up the hill to consult him. He has a
shed outside his house, where he talks to clients. There
are rows of chairs both outside and inside the shed, for
clients to wait their turn.

He said that the knowledge of "mantra-tantra" existed
in his family for many generations. His forefathers did
it, and his father still does it. He learned his skill from
his father, when he was about twenty years of age. He now
uses mantras as a divinatory tool and as a remedy. The
mantras existing in his family are bejali mantras. But he
also has tantric training and uses tantric mantras more than
bejali mantras as he feels that tantric mantras work faster
and are more effective. Both bej and Tantrics do the same
things, according to Goswami, but Tantrics are more
powerful. The source of their power (shakti) is their
sadhana (spiritual exercises). He also feels that though
bejali can do good things, most bej have fallen into the
trap of greed and money. But a pure tantric, even if he has
the knowledge of the Six Acts of Tantra (Satkarma), cannot
use them to harm others without genuine cause. The
prolonged and rigorous exercises of Tantric training

disciplines his mind so that he obtains a natural sense of

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judgement which is not swayed by the lure of money, or by
feelings of revenge or spite. Besides, the source of power
of a lot of bej are beings like ghosts and spirits (birha,
bhoot) whom they keep to do their bidding, while Tantrics
get their power from the gods. This also helps them discern
right from wrong. When I asked him why a Tantric would take
the trouble of mastering the Six Acts if he could never use
them, Goswami said that there are times when these mantras
can be used. If a person is harming the country or his
fellow beings, the mantras can be used to punish, stop, or
even kill him, depending on the intensity of the harm he has
caused. That is where the issue of proper judgement comes
in.

Speaking about the power inherent in the mantras,
Goswami said that often, the words of the mantra have no
meaning. But the arrangement of words create a vibration in
the ether, which brings about action (kriya kore). Even
when the words mean something, it is the configuration of
the syllables, and not the meaning that is effective. If
the mantra is translated into another language, and the
translation is chanted, the desired result will not be
obtained.

Discussing the difference between an ojha, a bej and a
vaidya, he said that the difference is just one of degree.
Both vaidyas and bej use both mantras and herbal medicines,

but bej use more mantras and less medicine, while vaidyas

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use more medicine and less mantras. thas are the same
thing as bej, but they use no herbal medicines. Though
Goswami does mantras as well as gives herbal medicines, he
does not like being called a bej. When I asked him what he
was, he said he was an astrologer. He explained that
astrology has stipulated three kinds of remedies to
alleviate problems caused by planets (grohor dosh) ---
mantra, yantra, and medicines. Depending on the person’s
horoscope, he uses one or more of these remedies. He also
uses a branch of astrology, called horary astrology to
answer client’s questions, in which the person’s horoscope
is not needed. Predictions are made by making calculations

based on the exact time at which the question was asked.

Dharmeshwar Goewemi. Dharmeshwar Goswami lives in a village
a few miles away from Mayong. He is eighty seven years old,
and is known in that area as Mayongiya Babaji Gosai (the
ascetic spiritual guide from Mayong). He is the Gosai of a
satra, and is also a writer, writing both prose and poetry.
He talks and writes in a very philosophical manner. People
come to him for treatment from all kinds of illness and life
problems. He is well known for his treatment of problems
caused by ghosts and spirits.

He said that being born and raised around the jungles
of Mayong, he had seen all kinds of bejali feats being

performed all his life. There were a lot of bejali texts at

99
home which he learned to use. About fifty years ago, when
he was a young man, he met an ascetic in these jungles, from
whom he got initiated into spiritualism. He continued doing
rigorous spiritual exercises, spending eight months in a pit
he had dug in the forests. As a part of his exercises, he
maintained complete silence (mauni) during those months, not
speaking a word to anyone. After those eight months, he
emerged as an enlightened person. He realized that a large
number of mantras and bejali texts he had in his family home
dealt with the realm of ghosts and spirits. The mantras
were of a lower nature, and focused on harmful things. In
his enlightened state of mind, he could comprehend their
harmfulness in a way he could not in the past. He found
that he could never use such mantras. He also realized that
having such mantras in the house was dangerous -—- though he
never used them, someone else may be tempted to do so. He
therefore took all those texts and destroyed them by
dropping them in the river.

He sees this sense of enlightenment as a shakti that
separates different levels of bej. Lower level bej do not
have much sense of distinction between right and wrong.

They are less able to control greed and are therefore easily
prone to use harmful mantras. He does not mind being called
a bej, but he specifies that people do not see him as a
wicked bej. In his definition, bejali is using mantras or

medicines to help or harm. Thus, dhanantari, bej, ojha,

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vaidya, Tantric, are all same, as they all use mantras. The
differences that people have created are without much basis.
The only difference he sees is the difference in levels.

Mantras, according to him, are words, through which
things get done. But merely having the words is not enough.
The people who do mantras need to awaken some sort of shakti
inside them. Using the example of shooting an arrow, he
said that just having the proper combination of the right
arrow for the right bow is not enough. The person shooting
the arrow will have to know the correct procedure to shoot.
Thirdly, the person shooting the arrow will need to have the
physical strength (shakti) to be able to shoot with enough
force to hit the target. If any one of these is missing,
the arrow will either not move at all or will not reach the
target. And to be able to continue hitting the target and
maintaining his technique, the person will also need to keep
practicing constantly. This I thought was a perfect
metaphorical description of the cultural logic behind the

practitioners’ power.

PRACTITIONERS WIIH BRINGS OF THEIR OWN.

This group of practitioners claim to derive their power
from some being (devata) that either stays with them all the
time, or enters their body periodically. All of them
referred to these beings in a very reverential manner. The

term devata

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could mean a god, a ghost or a spirit but all of these
practitioners refused to tell me the exact nature of their
beings. All these practitioners spoke of undergoing
supernatural practices before being able to keep or control
these beings. They also agreed on the need to maintain
various kinds of restrictions in their daily life so as to

keep themselves worthy of receiving these beings.

Nripen Goswami. Nripen Goswami lives in a small town about
20 miles from Mayong. He is sometimes called Mayongiya
Gosai (the spiritual guide from Mayong) by people of the
area. He is about sixty five years old, but looks younger.
He has a very large clientele, and it is very hard to get
hold of him easily. I had to try six times before I could
finally meet him. He is often taken to different places by
his clients -- sometimes even out of Assam. The day after I
met him for the first time, he was supposed to leave for
Calcutta because a client’s mill was having financial and
labor difficulties and hence they needed his services.

When he is home, he sees clients every tuesday and
saturday. I have always visited him on these two days. He
has an average of about thirty clients a day. A lot of his
clients come by cars from other parts of Assam. The fact
that his house is right on the National Highway makes it
easier for clients to stop by and see him. He talks to

people individually inside a small, closed room in his

102
house. The room has a table and a chair where he sits, and
two chairs for the clients. There is a bookshelf lined with
books on one side of the room, and pictures of gods on the
walls.

He said that he used to work in a tea—garden, before he
got into spiritual life. One day in 1963, he was "shown" a
dream, in which he was told to leave his job and come back
home as his father and son would die very soon. So he left
his job and came home. Soon after, his father and son did
die. He was mentally very hurt when his son died. He
started worshipping Shiva and Durga from then on, in a small
Shiva temple that he set up at his courtyard. With the
passage of time, he realized that he would get certain
numbers in his head, which, when calculated in a particular
way, enabled him to find solutions to problems. He started
using his ability to help people. Gradually his fame
spread, and now people have great faith in him and the
temple in his courtyard. As a result of people’s donations,
the temple is a fairly big one now.

He claims that he does not do anything himself. A
shakti (power) whispers everything to him. The shakti gives
him the numbers to calculate, and based on the numbers, he
makes his diagnosis. The shakti also tells him what remedy
to give, what mantra to use to prepare the remedy, and in
which page of the Tantrasaar (the text he uses most) the

remedy will be found. The remedies he gives can be a

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potentized flower, an amulet, a fruit, and a range of other
things. He deals with everything, from illnesses, to
finding lost articles, to getting rid of the effects of bad
mantras.

He uses both local bejali texts as well as Tantric
texts. According to him, there is no need to have too many
mantras. Just a few basic mantras, when combined with the
spiritual success (siddhi) of the person is enough. The
spiritual power of the person is very important --- without
it the mantra, no matter how powerful the configuration of
words, is useless. And if the person has siddhi, he does
not even have to say the entire mantra --- just saying one
word can be efficacious. But the person has to strive hard
both to obtain this power as well as to maintain it. Giving
his own example, he said that he has to perform a few hours
of spiritual exercises every morning before he can even eat
anything. He has given up eating fish and meat, and cannot
eat anywhere and everywhere.

I have heard him being referred to as bej, dhanantari,
and vaidya. When I asked him how he saw himself, he said he
had no objection to being called a dhanantari or a vaidya,
but he gets very uneasy at being called a bej. Bej harm
others, they can kill people, and are greedy. vaidya and
dhanantari only do good to others. He said that all three
did mantras --- the difference lay in the level and in the

procedures followed.

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Brojen Sharma. Brojen Sharma, about fifty two years old, is
an ojha and a priest. He lives in Guwahati, where he works
as a clerk in a government office. He told me that people
call him a Dhanantari ojha. The knowledge of this
technique has existed in his family for eight generations
(aath purush). Sharma learnt it from his cousin (dada,
older brother), who "gave" it to him before he died. The
cousin had learnt it from his father’s brother (dangor
pita), who had learnt it from his father, and so on. His
great grandfather’s uncle (aju aatar jetha) was the first .
Dhanantari in the family. Sharma was about twenty two years
old when his cousin "gave" him the knowledge and taught him
how to "direct" the mantra books existing in the family.
Learning it was a tedious process. His cousin would recite
a line, then ask Sharma to recite it exactly like him. If
the words were not pronounced right, or if he left out a
syllable, he had to start all over again. His cousin also
warned him not to use certain mantras in the books, as they
were either not good, or the ingredients needed to make
those mantras effective were not available any more.

Sharma said that he also does Tantric mantras, and he
was formally initiated into these by three separate gurus.
He was first initiated into tantric practices by a guru,
Tarapodo Sharma, at a Shiva temple there. His second guru
was Chinmoy Goswami, who was also from Bengal. After his

second initiation, he became very ill. His mind was taken

105
away from him, and he had become "brainless" (his word). His
illness was suspected to be caused by someone’s bad mantras,
so he was sent to Mayong for treatment. In Mayong, his
illness was diagnosed as being caused by someone who had
done "medicines" on him. "Doing medicines" (aushad kora) is
a term used to denote someone harming someone else by
deliberately feeding them food that had bad mantras (ku
mantras) chanted on it. (Karuna Goswami, a woman tantric
worshipper (Tantric sadhika), diagnosed his illness. She
was not a bej or an ojha, so she did not have the power
(shakti) to cure him, but she had the power by which she
could tell him who had the remedyi) She gave him the name of
a Muslim ojha who lived about a hundred and twenty miles
away from Mayong. He went to this ojha, who cured him by
getting rid of the bad "medicine" which had been fed to him.
This was done by the ojha giving him a fruit which had
mantras chanted on it. The fruit made Sharma vomit out the

bad medicine from inside his body. (After he was cured, he

\

“b.

went back to Mayong and stayed there for six months, as a
disciple of Karuna Goswami. She was his third guru. After
she initiated him, and taught him all she had to teach,
Sharma went back to his village and continued doing the
exercises she had taught him:)

Sharma uses his knowledge now to treat different kinds
of illnesses as well as other problems like startling (sok

khowa) and evil eye (mukh loga, nozor loga). [He also haS‘

106
mantras which are very good in making spirits admit their
presence inside a possessed person. If needed, he also uses
herbal medicines along with chanting mantras. The mantras,
as well as the details of the herbs to use and the
techniques to prepare the medicines, are in the texts
(bejali puthis) he uses. He has about forty two such texts,
which together cover a wide range of problems. The texts
are all written in Assamese, and have been inherited from
his cousin. According to him, there is no difference
between bej, ojha, dhanantari, and vaidya and all these are
Tantric things (Tantric bostu).

Sharma said that ordinarily he diagnoses his clients
problems and decides which mantra to use on the basis of the
client’s symptoms. But for complex problems, such as
treatment of childlessness, or for an illness that he has
not been able to cure using his regular mantras, he has a
special shakti (power) that he can invoke upon himself,
which enables him to diagnose what the problem is. His
special shakti tells him why a couple is childless and what
can be done about it, or in case of an illness, why he is
having problems curing it. Sometimes the shakti may tell
him to use a particular mantra, or, if the problem is
incurable, to give up. And if his shakti tells him to give
up, he gives up. He also invokes his shakti to identify the
cause of problems that a person or a family may be going

through --- spirits, someone’s bad mantras, or evil bundles

107
buried in their house or courtyard. Sharma also said that
sometimes, when he goes to someone’s house, he gets an
uneasy feeling as though something is not right. He then
invokes his shakti to find out if anything is wrong. It
often turns out that there are buried evil bundles, or a
spirit lurking around, which the family was unaware of.

He obtained this shakti through his own efforts, as a
result of his sadhana (spiritual exercises). It is not a
power obtained from books, but learned from his gurus. The
power belongs to a deity (devata) who enters into his body
when invoked. In order to ensure that the deity will
continue coming into him whenever invoked, Sharma has to
perform certain rituals on a daily and monthly basis. To do
these he has to get up at dawn every morning, and once a
month he has to go to a cremation ground to perform rituals.
He also has to follow a lot of commensal restrictions to
maintain bodily purity so as to accommodate the deity in his
body. As cooked rice is a key avenue of pollution coming
into the body, he does not eat food cooked by anyone else
except his wife, and never eats at restaurants. He has one
major meal in the evening, and no rice or rice based foods
during the day. He also has to be pure in thoughts and
action, not think or do bad things, and never harm others
deliberately.

Besides doing mantras, he also does pujas and other

rituals for clients, though neither of these are a major

108
source of income for him. The dakshina (gifts of cash and
kind given to a brahmin at the conclusion of a ritual) he
gets for doing puja differ from family to family, and he
accepts whatever he is given. In the case of doing mantras,
clients give him a token payment when he only chants
mantras. But if he gives them an amulet, he charges for the

materials needed in that amulet.

Nabin Mehenea. Nabin Mahanta is about sixty five, and lives
in a small Upper Assam town, about a hundred miles from
Guwahati. He is a retired principal of a local primary
school. He is very impressive in looks -- tall, with long
hair that fall to his shoulders. He seems to be doing quite
well economically, having a fair amount of agricultural
land, and sons owning small business concerns. He is very
well known, and is often taken by clients to their homes in
different parts of Assam to solve problems. During my
visits to his home, I met people from all over Assam, as
well as from the neighboring state of Nagaland. His clients
ranged from people suffering from chronic illnesses to all
kinds of life problems. Besides other things, he is seen to
be very good in finding missing persons, in getting rid of
the effect of bad mantras, curing madness, as well as
helping with job related problems like boosting the chances
of an expected promotion, or changing an unwanted transfer

order.

109

He told me that he does not do anything himself. He
has certain shaktis (powers), who do his work for him. He
refers to these shaktis as he would refer to some respected
person. There are three of "them" who stay with him at
different times of the day. Two stay from six to eleven in
the morning, while one comes at one in the afternoon. It is
"they" who diagnose the problem, and prepare the remedies.
He only follows their instructions.

Mahanta uses a room in his home to talk to his clients.
There are benches all around the room for people to sit. He
sits at a desk on one side of the room and talks to people,
from 6 A.M to 11 A.M. He is often referred to as the
"telephone bej", because of his style of interaction. He
sits at his desk holding a few ancient silver coins to his
ear, as though he is holding a telephone receiver. He says
that "they" (his shaktis) are inside those coins. In the
"telephone conversation", he asks the shaktis about the
patient, and they answer him through the coins, diagnosing
the problem and suggesting remedy. No one else in the room
can hear these shaktis though. On the dot, at 11 A.M, they
leave. He then retires to an inner room, where he has a
shrine, to prepare the remedies. When they are ready, he
comes back to the outer room, and hands out the remedies --
a flower, a potentized garment, a potentized bottle of
water, an amulet, barks of trees, and a range of other

things.

110

He said that it was not easy to get these shaktis to
work for him. He had been communicating with them since he
was about forty five. They had come to him in his dream and
had told him they would stay with him. So he went to a
particular temple about eighty miles away, just as they
instructed him to, and "brought" them with him. They told
him to go to a specific guru, who taught him certain bij
mantras, and following the guru’s instructions, he started
doing his spiritual exercises (sadhana). He said that at
time "they" had given him the power (shakti) to see and hear
them, but he could not make them do his bidding. He just
kept them and tended to their needs (puhi rakhisilu). It
was a few years later, after he had mastered the exercises
learned from his guru, that they started obeying him.

He told me that though he can get rid of the effects of
bad mantras, he does not say any mantras himself. The power
of his remedies come from his shaktis. It is they who
prepare the remedies, he only puts the ingredients together.
But he refused to tell me how exactly they prepared the
remedies. He specified that he was not a Tantric, and I
noticed that the pictures and idols in his shrine were of
Vaishnav deities. He vehemently stated that he was not a
bej as he did not do any chanting (jora phooka). It was
"they" who potentized the oil (tel jari diye) or "cut" water
(pani kati diye) by chanting, not him. According to him,

bej are those people WhO'dO jora-phooka from puthis (texts).

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They do bad mantras and harm people. But he never uses
puthis and "they" never harm people. He emphasized that his
shaktis are always trying to help people. Bej, according to
him, are not so benevolent. Besides, bej are greedy and
harm others for money. He never demands any money from
anyone. There is a box on his table, where people put in
whatever they want to give him. But I have been told by
clients that he sometimes asks particular clients to bring
him ancient coins for particular services. He has quite a

collection of such coins, where he says "they" reside.

Birendranath Shagma. Birendranath Sharma is the priest of a
well known Shiva temple about two hundred miles away from
Guwahati. He lives in a small house near the temple, and
people from all parts of Assam throng there at dawn everyday
to consult him. He said he has a shakti that comes into him
everyday just before sunrise and stays till just after
sunrise, that is from about 3 A.M till about 5.30 or 6 A.M.
During this period he has the power to tell people whatever
they want to know, by divining with five cowrie shells.
Referring to his shakti, he said that it enables him to
understand what the configuration of shells thrown on the
ground foretell. After sunrise, the divinatory power leaves
him, but he can still prepare the remedies that his shakti
had suggested. The remedies include amulets, water, oil,

rice, and even bottles of perfume with mantras chanted on"

112
them. Sometimes he just gives advice, depending on the
problem.

According to him, he has had the shakti with him for
the past twenty-five years. He was told in a dream to come
to this temple and to worship the deity there. He did so,
and for one month came there everyday at 3 A.M to do his
spiritual exercises. After a month "he" blessed him with
the shakti. Birendranath Sharma refused to tell me anything
more about who "he" was, and about his guru, even though he
did mention a guru. When I tried to probe further, he
started jerking and shaking, seemingly involuntarily, and
told me that this was happening because the shakti did not
want him to answer my questions.

He told me that he was not a bej as he did not chant
mantras from books and did not keep ghosts or spirits ---
his shakti came from god. A lot of clients I talked to
though said that he could be called a bej as he did things
that bej do --- like giving amulets, giving chanted water
(pani jora), and so on. One client said that there are
different kinds of bej --- some that dealt exclusively with
books while others that did not. He saw Birendrenath Sharma
as belonging to the second category. He said that sometimes
the client may need a book mantra. Then he directs the

client to a bej who has that mantra.

113

Gobordhon Deka. Gobordhon Deka lives in a town about a
hundred—and-fifty miles from Guwahati. He is about fifty
years of age, is a farmer, and also has a small business
selling Ayurvedic medicines. He has a reputation as a bej
in the surrounding areas. He first learnt bejali when he
was thirty. He was never initiated into spirituality, but
his guru initiated him according to the guru’s own
requirements. Besides teaching him bejali mantras, his guru
also taught him to communicate with a supernatural being
(devata). He told me he could cure different kinds of
illnesses and other life problems, and people would come to
him for help. When I asked him what brought about the cure,
he said that it was the attributes (guns-gun) of the words
themselves and the procedure of saying them. For example,
to get rid of evil eye, he would chant mantras over a bowl
of water, making cutting motions over the water with a twig.
Then he blew on the water. The cutting motion and the
blowing (phook, phooka) both put the power (shakti) of the
mantra into the water, thus making the water potent. The
beings he communicated with helped him in identifying
problems and their causes, and also in getting things done
for him.

According to him, there is no difference between bej,
vaidya, and dhanantari, as they all do tantra-mantra. But
an ojha is different. An ojha, to him is a drummer, and has

no connection with doing mantras. When I talked to him,

114

though, he told me that he had stopped doing bejali, as it
was a very dangerous profession. If a bej does not say the
mantras right, or if he gets greedy and becomes tempted to
take money for his services, harm comes to him and his
family. He did not feel like taking such a risk, especially
since clients would often seek his help in harming others.
He kept refusing to help them, but was afraid that he might
give in to temptation some day. As he got deeper into the
field, he also found that communicating with supernatural
beings involved a lot of restrictions in his own life. He
got scared of the power of those beings and started worrying
about what would happen to him and his family if he made
mistakes in following those restrictions. He therefore
stopped practicing bejali.

What I found significant, though, was that he stopped
doing bejali not because he lost faith in its efficacy, but
out Of fear for the consequences; He and his family members

still go to other bej in times of illness or troubles.

PRACTITIONERS WITH ONLY BOOK KNOWLEDGE.

Almost all the practitioners I have discussed so far
use books to a certain extent. The only exceptions are
Nabin Mahanta and Birendranath Sharma who claim that it is
their shaktis who do everything for them and hence they do
not need books. The three practitioners I will discuss now

use only books --- they do not have any spiritual

115
enlightenment or supernatural beings to give them power.
Practitioners of this category are seen to be of the lowest

level by practitioners of the previous two categories.

Jitendra Dae, Jitendra Das is a mechanic living in a small
town about a hundred and seventy five miles from Guwahati.
He owns a small garage, and lives in a two-roomed house in
the garage compound. There is a Kali temple and a Shiva
temple next door that he had helped establish with donations
from people, and he does the daily worship (puja) in both.
He is a frail man, about 65 years old, with long matted hair
and a long beard. He gives the impression of a religious
person. He learned his skill from a guru, Naren Talukdar,
when he was about thirty years old. During that period, his
family was going through a lot of trouble -- the members of
his family were seriously ill, and it was due to someone’s
bad mantras. In his words, his family was in ruins (sarkhar
hoi goisil). He therefore went to Naren Talukdar for
remedy, and soon after, his troubles decreased. He was very
impressed by what Talukdar did for his family, and so asked
him to be his guru. Talukdar first tested him and finding
him suitable, taught him his mantras. After he got
initiated in mantras, he also got initiated into tantric
practices from another guru, and after some time,
established his Kali temple in 1962. He has been leading a

very religious life since then.

116

Though he treats illnesses too, Das specializes in
problems caused by bad mantras (kn-mantras) and by ghosts
(bhoote dhora). He first diagnoses the problem by chanting
mantra on the nails of a person acting as medium, who can
then see images come up on his nails. Based on what those
images say, Das gives his remedies. He has particular
mantras which when chanted while sprinkling mustard on the
ground, can lift out bundles of harmful items buried under
the ground by unscrupulous bej. He does not hold regular
sessions with clients; people come to him whenever they need
his help. His clients call him by many names --- a priest
(pujari), a Tantric, a bej. He does not like being called a
bej though, because though he does bejali, it is not his
profession. He has a garage to meet his financial needs and
he looks after two temples. So he does not go from house to
house doing bejali. Besides, he added, bej usually get
greedy and do harm to others.

According to him, keeping away from greed is a very
important aspect of doing mantras. The effectiveness of
mantras depend not only on the power inherent in the words,
but also on the power of the person saying them. The person
therefore has to continuously maintain his own power by

leading a pure life.

Mihir Sharma. Mihir Sharma is a priest in an Upper Assam

town. He is about 60 years old -- a small, thin man, with

117
a few teeth missing due to age. He speaks very fast,
because of which he is often hard to understand. He learned
his skill at about thirty years of age, from a guru, a few
years after his spiritual initiation. He does not hold
regular sessions to talk to clients. He already has a set
of clients for whom he does pujas; Most of the people for
whom he does mantras come from this group. They come to his
house, or more frequently, call him over to their house,
whenever they need his services. He is often called upon to
potentize water to get rid of evil eye and in times of pox,
and potentize oil to relieve pain. He said he had no
objection to being called a bej as people know that he is
not a bej like those from Mayong, who usually do harm. Bej

like him, on the other hand, only help others.

Gojen Barea, Gojen Barua lives in a small town about a
hundred and seventy five miles away from Guwahati. He is
about fifty years old and works in a government office. His
father was a famous bej, who died about fifteen years ago.
His father had learnt his skill in Mayong, which is about
hundred miles away from the village where the family lived
then. His father was a very quiet and sober person (thanda
manuh), and a bej from Mayong, who had been visiting them
persuaded him to go to Mayong and learn mantras so as to
help others. After his return from Mayong, he started

treating problems like evil eye, burns and other injuries,

118
excessive bleeding, snake bites, caterpillar sting, fish or
thorn pricks, worms in the teeth (tooth decay) and various
kinds of illnesses. He also helped people who were having
trouble getting their daughter married, or who were having
marital conflicts, or when there were threats of a joint
family breaking up due to the members fighting among
themselves as well as getting rid of spirits or the effects
of other’s bad mantras.

Gojen Barua started learning these skills from his
father, at the age of sixteen. His father tested him before
giving him the mantras, often slapping or shouting at Gojen
for no reason, just to see how Gojen would react.

Initially, there were times when Gojen would retort back, or
get angry at his father. But gradually he learned to curb
his anger and stay calm even when provoked. After his
father was convinced that his son had enough self-control so
as not to use his mantras against others in anger or
retaliation, he started teaching them to him. It was a long
process, as Gojen mastered the mantras one at a time, so as
not to confuse the lines of one mantra with another. He
does not have any spiritual initiation, but he was told by
his father to always think pure thoughts. He has to
maintain some restrictions, in food and drink, such as
abstaining from alcoholic drinks, pork, and chicken, and
fasting on sundays and mondays -- so as to make his mantras

more effective.

119

He said that his practice does not have any specific
name. He simultaneously calls it bejali, tantra-mantra,
jhar phook, and jadu-vidya (the knowledge of magic). Though
he often call his practice tantra-mantra, he does not know
anything about the Tantric satkarmas, as he is a Vaishnav
and does not worship goddesses as such. He said that people
call him bej, vaidya or dhanantari. And they call him by
these names because of what he does --- mantras. He has all
the mantras he uses memorized, but they are also in books,
hand written by his father, which he has inherited. His
father had copied these mantras from his guru in Mayong.
Gojen does not use any methods of divination, nor does he
have any special shakti to help him. He listens to the
client’s problem and the symptoms, and based on those,
decides on what to do. He potentizes water, gives amulets,
and chants mantras on the person, depending on what the
specific problem needs.

He said that though he dealt with all kinds of
illnesses and problems, he is quite well known for his
treatment of pain, evil eye and his Raj Mbhini amulet
(attraction amulet). He has given this amulet to a lot of
people, to bring about good relations between them and their
enemies. He does not take any money from his clients as his
knowledge is not for sale. Besides, he said that if a bej
takes money, his mantras will not work, and his family never

prospers. But he can charge a client for things that have

120
to be bought --- like the gold and silver amulet shell
needed for the Raj Mbhini mantra, or the copper or brass
shells needed for other mantras.

Gojen told me that he never did bad mantras. He talked
to me about the virtues of his Raj.Mbhini mantra to me in
terms of its role in getting rid of conflict and bringing
people together. But when I talked to other people in the
town about him, I found that he invoked mixed reactions in
people. There is an element of fear associated with him.
According to some informants, he is not to be trusted,
especially when it comes to his Raj Mohini mantra. The lady
who introduced me to Gojen has three beautiful teenage
daughters. She told me that she does not like Gojen coming
to her house, as she has been warned by her relatives and
neighbors against him. They all felt that he could be
unscrupulous enough to use that mantra, for a price, on one
of her daughters, and get her infatuated with an unsuitable
person. On the other hand, I also met a couple who said
that Gojen had solved their marital conflicts using his Raj

Mbhini mantra.
CONCLUSION
This description of the various practitioners show

distinctions as well as similarities among them. All of

them have had some kind of formal training in doing mantras.

121
Some have gone beyond the first level training from books
and have also performed various degrees of spiritual
exercises. Many of them got into mantras by inheriting the
knowledge existing in the books owned by their family.
Irrespective of whether the knowledge is acquired from
family members or from other gurus, it is apparent that the
qualities of the person learning the mantra becomes an
important consideration when teaching mantras to a disciple.
Most gurus test their disciples before giving them the
mantras, even if the disciple is their own son, so that the
disciple does not misuse the mantras he has learned. Even
after obtaining the knowledge they have to continually
maintain purity of thought and action so as to make the
mantras work for them.

These practitioners are seen to be powerful because
their training gives them the power to harness the
supernatural forces inherent in the words of the mantrasand
in the beings they control. The beings that they control
and the spiritual success they have achieved also places
them (the practitioners) in the category of the
supernatural. It is also noticeable that the more
spiritually oriented practitioners are more prestigious than
others. This is because of the general idea, both among
practitioners and clients, that a spiritually enlightened
person is less likely to give in to revenge and the lure of

money. All the practitioners I talked to said that they

122

never demanded money, and took whatever the client gave
them. What was significant was that though they did not
demand money, the clients always gave something, even if it
was a very small amount. There seems to be a general
feeling that the remedy may not work if obtained without a
price. This idea probably stems from the concept of
dakshina --— a gift of cash or kind given to a brahmin at
the conclusion of a ritual, without which the ritual is
considered incomplete. Goudriaan, in his analysis of the
religious foundations of magic in sanskrit texts mentions .
that the client

should not forget the ritual gift (daksina) by

which he counterbalances the performer’s services.

The Mantramahodadhi (by Mahindhara, ed.

Khemararaja Srikrsnadasa, Bombay 1962), 25, 49ff,

the only authority on the subject in the passages

studied by us specifies that, the more evil the

rite, the higher should be the daksina [Goudriaan

1978:2721.
The only practitioner I saw who was strict in not taking
anything from his clients was Dayanand Trivedi, and the
reason he could prevent people from offering anything was
the protocol involved in interacting with a government
official of his stature. Even then, people would often
bring flowers, which they would place at his feet as an
offering. Practitioners like Dayanand Trivedi, Amaresh
Chakrabarty, Dharmeshwar Goswami, Nripen Goswami, would

often have clients touching their feet in reverence, for

their blessings. But I have never seen anyone touch someone

123
like Gojen Barua’s feet, probably because he is known to do
bad mantras. The aura of reverence that the practitioner
creates is itself an example of the sense of power he
suggests. Such an aura comes from his reputation as a good,
pure and siddha person (one who has achieved spiritual
success). For most clients, a remedy given by such a

powerful man is bound to be efficacious.

CHAPTER 5

THE PRACTICE

As already mentioned in Chapter 1, the interaction
between the practitioner and the clients constitute the
practice of mantras. In this chapter, I will analyze the
structure of this interaction, which I see as unfolding in a
more or less fixed pattern, of divination, diagnosis, and
remedy. These three often follow one after another, though
sometimes they may not. The aim of this chapter is to lay
out the assumptions about reality on which the practice of

doing mantras is based.

DIVINATI N

One of the key tools of diagnoses used by most of the
practitioners I talked to is divination. Various forms of
divination are practiced, and the form used differs from
practitioner to practitioner. Some use only one form, while
others use more than one, depending on suitability.

The term most commonly used to refer to divination is
basoni soa (looking by selecting). Divination is the chief
means of diagnosing the cause of life problems, based on
which remedies are suggested. It is an aid to counselling,
and enables the practitioner to tell the client what he or

she wants to know about the outcome of situations. It is

124

125
also used to diagnose the cause and remedies of complicated
illnesses.

Most practitioners I talked to saw a distinction
between normal illness (enei bemar), which a person can get
for no particular reason as such (enei hoi), and illnesses
having specific underlying causes, such as spirits (bhoot),
bad winds (hawa botah), bad mantras (kn-mantras), startling
(sok-khowa), and evil eye (nojor loga or mukh loga). Normal
illnesses are relieved by looking at the symptoms and using
the remedies, mainly mantras, specified in the texts for
those symptoms. Eliciting symptoms is important, as
efficacy depends on using the right mantra for the right
ailment. But often, even the right mantras do not bring
results. Then divination is resorted to find out if there
are any underlying causes. In Brojen Sharma’s words,

ojhas can make out by various means whether the problem

is just an ailment (enei bemar), and has happened just

like that, for no reason (enei hoise), or has somebody
done something deliberately (ku-montro), or is it '
startling (sok khowa), or other such things.
According to Amaresh Chakrabarty, divination helps in
understanding whether

some wind has touched the person (hawa-botah lagil

neki), or has some mischievous spirit taken refuge in

the person (kono opodebota ashroy hol neki), or has
somebody done bad mantras to harm the person (konobaye
ku-montro korile neki), or has the person caught
someone’s eye (karbaar nojor lagil neki), or is it just

illness (enei bemar neki), or is it the result of bad
planets (grohor dosh).

126
Divining by picking up matchee (Deslai kathi tola).
Amaresh Chakrabarty and his brother use match sticks for
divination. They ask their clients to first open a new box
of matches. They should then fold three fingers of the
right hand into a fist, leaving the thumb and forefingers
straight. Then, thinking about the problem (e.g. why is my
husband not getting a promotion, when will my son get a job,
will my daughter pass this exam, and so on) each time, the
person has to pick up a few matches from the box, thrice.
The three sets are then to be mixed together, wrapped in a
piece of paper, and brought to the brothers. They lay the
matches in groups of three on the floor, and, calculating
the number of groups that came up, and the number of matches
'left over at the end (one or two), they can make
predictions. The requirement for this procedure is that the
matches need to be picked before 9 A.M. People who come to
see the brothers after 9 A.M already pick the matches at
home, while those who come before 9 often pick in front of
them. The brothers prefer clients picking up matches in
front of them, as it ensures that the right procedures are
being followed. If the matches are not picked in the right
way or with the right fingers, the prediction will be

incorrect.

Lookin o fin er-nail Nb ot soa . This form of

divination needs two people —-- the practitioner and a

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medium. The practitioner first chants mantras on some oil
and pours the oil on the medium’s finger nails. He then
holds the medium’s head with his hand and keeps chanting.
As long as he is holding the medium’s head, the medium can
see things on his nails, "just like seeing something on
television", according to Satyen Goswami. He can see where
harmful things are buried in people’s houses, in case of
thefts he can see the entire scene of when, how, and by whom
the theft was committed, and so on.

The crucial factor in "looking on finger-nails" is the
medium, as it is only the medium who can see what appears on
the nails. Others, including the practitioner, see
nothing. Not everybody can be a medium. Though there are
no specific characteristics of a person who can be a medium,
he generally has a "weaker" astrological sign like tula or
bikh, and is usually a simple-minded person. The only way
to know whether a person can be a medium or not is by
pouring the oil on his fingers-nails and testing whether he
can see anything. Jitendra Das, who uses this means very
often, has his own medium, whom he found after testing
several people. Satyen Goswami, who occasionally uses this
method does not have a regular medium. He depends on the

client to provide him with one.

Looking in water (Papit Soa). This means of divination can

be done with or without a medium. This is the method Brojen

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Sharma uses, and he does it without a medium. He said that
the reason he does not need a medium is because his special
shakti works for him. He takes a big bowl of water and
chants the appropriate mantra on it, then he can see things
in the water. Satyen Goswami uses a medium to see things in
the water. Goswami chants mantras on a bowl of water, gives
the bowl to the medium, and the medium looks in the water
and tells him what he sees. Goswami does not need to hold
the medium’s head for this method, but he feels that this
method does not give as clear a picture as nails do. Brojen
Sharma, on the other hand, feels that nails do not give as

good a picture as water does!

Chanting-en bowle (Baeti Jpra). This is another method of

divination used by Satyen Goswami, which is usually used to
help find lost or stolen articles. He needs some fresh
earth dug up by field rats for this. The person who has
lost something is asked to write down the names of all those
whom he or she suspects of stealing the article. The names
are written on separate pieces of paper, and the paper
pieces are laid out in a row, face downwards, not very close
to each other. A small bell-metal bowl (kahor baati), is
filled with the rat soil, and a specific mantra is chanted
on it. The bowl is given to the medium, who holds it
lightly. The bowl starts moving, pulling the medium’s hand

along with it, and stops in front of the paper having the

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thief’s name. If it just moves about at random, and does
not stop in front of any name, it shows that either the
article is not stolen, just lost somewhere, or that the

thief’s name is not in the list of suspects.

Changing-on rice (Saul JOra). This is another method used

by Satyen Goswami to find out the identity of a guilty
person in case of thefts, or to decide who deliberately
harmed someone by doing bad mantras. Uncooked grains of
rice are chanted on and given to suspected persons. They
are told to chew the grains and then spit them out. The
innocent person will spit out a mixture of saliva and broken
bits of rice. But the guilty person will not be able to
chew the rice at all, and will spit out the whole rice

grains in a dry form, with no saliva.

Chanting-on hands (Haag JCra), This method is sometimes

used by Satyen Goswami to find out the location of harmful
items planted by other bej in the client’s house. Mantras
are chanted on the medium’s hands, who is then made to sit
on the floor with both his hands spread out in front of him.
The hands start moving of their own accord across the
ground, and stop at the place where the items are buried.
Digging up that spot will reveal those articles, which can
then be got rid of, thus ridding the client of the bad

effects of the mantra.

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Horapy Astrology (Prasna Vigyan). Though he uses these

various methods of divination once in a while, the method
Satyen Goswami is very competent in, and with which he
claims to have achieved 99 percent accurate results, is
horary astrology (prasna vigyan). In this kind of
astrology, one particular question can be answered at a
time. The kind of questions answered can be wide ranging,

as in Satyen Goswami’s words,

my daughter is not getting married, when will she
be married, how will the bridegroom be, where will
the bridegroom be from; or I have lost a gold
chain, where can I find it, has it been stolen, or
just lost, or what; or someone is ill and the
doctors are not being able to diagnose the
problem, will the illness get cured, and if it
does get cured, by what kind of treatment will it
get cured --- doctori (by medical doctors),
homeopathy, asuri, or what, what kind of
practitioner will cure the person, the age, caste,
of the practitioner, in which direction can the
practitioner be found, when will the cure take
place, will I have to go out of town to get cured,
or will I be cured right at home; or a person is
missing, is he or she dead or alive, has he or she
run away, committed suicide, has been kidnapped,
will he or she come back or not and so on.

The key factor in horary astrology is time (kaal) ~~~
calculations are done on the exact time the question was
asked. According to Satyen Goswami, time (kaal) is the
determiner of our birth, our fate, our death —-- birth, life
events, death, all happen at particular junctions of time.
Time therefore can tell us things --- whether it is birth

time (horoscopes), or the exact time when a question is

asked in eagerness or agitation (horary astrology). As soon

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as the client asks the question, Goswami looks at his watch
and checks the exact time. He then does his calculations
based on that time, and comes upon the answer. After he
told me all this, I asked him if I could ask him a question,
right then, just to see how the procedure worked. He said
that for the procedure to work, the question has to be asked
in eagerness or agitation (aabeg), in other words, the
person has to be in a worried, agitated, eager, frame of
mind regarding the problem he or she had come to ask him
about. As I was deliberately asking the question as a test,
it was not possible for me to create that state of mind at
that time, so the procedure would probably not work for me.
But he also said that the scriptures had a remedy out of the
situation. After I go home, if the problem I was going to
ask about was big enough, it will come back to my mind
again, along with a state of worry, or agitation about it.
At that moment, I should pick a flower, and note the exact
date and time that the flower was picked. Examining the
kind of flower, the date, and the time it was plucked, he
will be able to answer my question. The key factor,
therefore, according to him, is time, but the correct time
based on which the calculation is to be done, is determined

by emotion.

Divining by numbers. Nripen Goswami also uses complex

calculations like Satyen Goswami, but the calculations are

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based on the first letter of the person’s name, and a random
number that comes to his head, which he says, is suggested
by his shakti. The first letter tells him the person’s
astrological sign, and each astrological sign has a number.
Using this number and the number his shakti has put in his
head, he does some additions and subtractions (jog-biyog),
and comes up with a final number. The final number is the
number of the page in his text in which the mantra and the
procedure for the remedy can be found. Based on that
remedy, he knows what to give the client ——— a flower or

fruit that has been chanted on, an amulet, or anything else.

Divinin with cowrie-shells Kori di soa . Birendranath
Sharma diagnoses his client’s problems by throwing cowrie
shells on the ground at dawn. He says that he gets a
special shakti every morning that enables him to understand
what the cowries say. But the shakti leaves him soon after
the sun rises, and he claims that later in the day he does
not remember anything of what he does in the morning.
Cowries can tell him why a particular woman is childless,
where a lost object can be found, why there is conflict
between the members of a family, why a person is ill, will a

person get a promotion this year, and so on.

Divining by a pot (Tekeli jora). This is a method of

divination Brojen Sharma told me about, by which a guilty

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person can be identified. A pot (tekeli),fresh from a
potter’s kiln is chanted on and then dropped in a water tank
(pukhuri). As the pot sinks deeper and deeper into the
water, getting filled with water in the process, the guilty
person’s stomach also keeps getting filled with "water".
After some time, he gets so bloated, that he cannot breathe.
He is then forced to confess, because he knows that if he
does not he will die, either by being unable to breathe, or

by bursting because of the excess water inside him.

Divinin wi h can 5 ick Bet 'ora . This is a form of
divination very similar to the previous one, to identify a
guilty person or the place where amulets or bundles, with
evil mantras (ku mantras) chanted on them, are buried.

There is a particular kind of cane (bet), which is first
chanted on, and then given to a suitable medium, having the
astrological sign tula. The medium takes it to the house of
the client and the cane searches around the house and the
courtyard, pulling the medium along with it, finally
stopping at the place where the harmful items are buried.

If it is searching for a guilty person, it stops in front of
the person and starts beating him or her till he or she
confesses guilt. Brojen Sharma, who told me about this
procedure, also said that the particular kind of cane needed
for it is not easily available anymore, and so this form of

divination is very rare these days.

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Divining by speciel powers. The practitioners who claim to
have special shakti primarily use it for divination. As
already described, these shaktis enable the practitiOner to
make predictions using a bowl of water, cowrie shells or
numbers. Sometimes, these shaktis simply whisper answers to
client’s questions as well as remedies into the
practitioner’s ears, as in the case of Nripen Goswami, or
Nabin Mahanta. Nabin Mahanta claims that his shaktis can go
anywhere in the world in seconds to check things out. If a
bej has set out a ghost (birha melise), or buried a bundle
of bad things in someone’s house, he (Mahanta) could get rid
of those things, just by sitting at his house. He just had
to send "them", and they will find the ghost or the bundle
immediately. If a person is ill, they go into the person’s
stomach and identify the problem instantly -—- whether
someone had fed the person something bad to make him or her
ill, or if it is just an illness. If a person is missing,
they can immediately find out where he or she is. And since
they operate so fast, they can immediately tell him what is
wrong, and what should be done about it.

This listing of various forms of divination is not
exhaustive. These are the forms used by the practitioners I
talked to. Other practitioners may be using other forms.
Each practitioner uses the form or forms that work best for
him. Divination is mainly seen as a means to an end. In

the next two sections, I will deal with the diagnosis and

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remedies suggested by these divinatory processes.

DIAGNOSIS.

The practitioners I talked to followed different means
of divination and diagnosis, and identified themselves in
different ways. But people came to them for relief from
similar problems, and the language of diagnosis that both
the client and the practitioner use is usually very similar.
In this section, I examine the most common of these
conceptualizations that practitioners and clients have of
the cause of the problem at hand. Though I have a separate
section on the different kinds of remedies given, I also
mention a few remedies in this section as they apply to the

particular category of diagnosis described.

Evil eye (nojor logaz mukh loga). The most common reason

people resort to mantras is to counteract effects of
attracting (loga) other’s eye (nojor) or mouth (mukh).

Mukh loga or nojor loga are not caused deliberately by
anyone. It is based on the victim’s personal appearance,
beauty, achievements, good health, good relationships ---
anything that can catch another’s "eye" or invite the
"mouth" to make a comment. The victim can get it from
people who are envious of him or her, or from people
naturally thought to have an "evil" (beya) eye or an "evil"

mouth, and even from domestic animals, especially if they

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are watching the victim eat. People who have an "evil" eye
or mouth are usually not aware of it, and they do not
deliberately harm others. But their innocently said words,
or their desirous feelings have the power to cause harm.
Brojen Sharma characterizes such people as having all
thirty-two teeth, as opposed to most people, who have only
thirty teeth in their mouth. Roma Barua called such a mouth
a pulverizing mouth (khunda mukh) --- words coming out of
such a mouth shatter the object they are directed at. When
such a person sees something beautiful, something compels
him or her to make a compliment --- and that compliment
causes harm. If such a person sees someone eating, all he
or she has to say is something like, "that curry you are
eating looks great", and the person who was eating that
curry will soon have an upset stomach. If such a person
compliments a woman on the beauty of the cloth she is
weaving, or on the rice cakes (pitha) she is making, she
will never be able to weave well, or make good rice cakes (a
very common snack item) again. Brojen Sharma told me he has
a friend in his village, who used to craft very beautiful
things out of cane. One day, about ten years ago, when he
was making something while sitting in the courtyard of his
house, an acquaintance passed by and profusely praised his
work. Minutes after the acquaintance left, the cane maker’s
fingers became crooked. According to Sharma, they are

crooked to this day. A very common story is about people

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who compliment the owner on a beautiful bunch of bananas
growing on his or her tree, and the bunch falls off the tree
even before the person who gave the compliment reached home.

As I was growing up in Assam, I was never allowed to
eat anything in the street or sitting outside the house, in
case what I was eating caught some hungry or covetous
person’s eye and made me ill. This kind of evil eye is not
necessarily caused by a person who has a "bad" eye and is
prone to causing evil eye, but because of the force of the
person’s desires. A person, a family, an entire household,
a garden, even someone’s cowshed, can be the recipient of
such an evil eye. Informants told me that sometimes the
floor or the doorway of one’s house can get someone’s evil
eye (mojiyat nojor lagibo pare), bringing harm to the people
who live there. Sometimes a family’s cooking stove (souka)
can catch someone’s evil eye -—- the family members will not
be able to digest (hojom nohobo) food cooked in the stove.
A family doing very well economically, or a family which is
free from conflict between its members are often prone to
"catch someone’s eye". I have heard stories about well to
do people reduced to financial ruin and harmonious joint
families breaking up because of evil eye. Fear of evil eye
is so inherent, that most people are afraid to praise their
families or even think, let alone talk, of how well their
life is going. A large black dot is always put on a baby’s

forehead to ward off evil eye. The person most likely to

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give evil eye to babies is the mother, as she is always
marvelling at the wonders of her child.

ijor loga or mukh 1093 is generally diagnosed by
divination. Sometimes, if the case is clear cut, the family
makes the diagnosis themselves, and divination is not
needed. For example, if a person gets ill immediately after
eating something while someone else was watching, or if
someone gets ill just after achieving something covetous,
evil eye is immediately suspected, and a practitioner is

resorted to.

Bad mantras (ku-mantras). A very common cause of life

problems and chronic illnesses are seen to be the result of
someone deliberately causing harm to another, using bad
mantras. These mantras are done by unprincipled
practitioners, for a price. The fear of ku mantras is
ubiquitous and unexplained misfortunes are often attributed
to it.

Ku mantras are often called baans (arrows), which, when
said in a person’s name hits the person like an arrow. They
are done for various purposes, and to bring about problems
ranging in different levels of intensity. They are induced
into the person or family, usually with the help of some
other object acting as a medium. A very common way of
inducing ku mantra is by feeding the victim something that

had bad mantras chanted on it, a process often referred to

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as "doing medicines". Brojen Sharma, Dharmeswar Goswami and
Gojen Barua told me about a baan called agni baan (fire
arrow), which causes intense burning sensations in the
victim’s body. Mantras are chanted on uncooked grains of
rice, which are then heated in the sun till they become dry,
puffed, and light like muri (the American equivalent of muri
is Rice Crispies). Even one grain of that rice when
sneaked into someone’s food, will give that person the agni
baan. There is another similar baan, called bikhali baan
(pain arrow), which makes the victim immobile with pain.
"Medicines" are sneaked into the victim’s body mixed with
regular food, like meat, eggs, fish, but these items do not
get digested. They just stay in the stomach in the form in
which they were fed --- as chunks of meat, a whole egg, or a
whole magur fish. Once inside the stomach, they make the
victim constantly ill --- these illnesses look like common
illnesses, but no medical doctor can cure them. Magur fish,
which I was told is used very often, is a very commonly
found fish. It can stay alive in a minimum amount of water,
and one of its characteristics in the fish market is that it
jumps about in the fisherman’s basket, turning somersaults,
making a loud splashing noise, and violently shaking the
basket every now and then. The same resemblance is made in
describing the state of the victim’s stomach when fed
"medicines" through this fish --- the fish becomes alive and

whole in the person’s stomach and splashes and turns about

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just as it does in the fisherman’s basket. The victim thus
has a very uncomfortable sensation in his or her stomach all
the time.

Another common form of ku mantra is aahudi (philter),
in which mantras are chanted on some commonly consumed item,
usually betel nut or a cup of tea, in the name of the victim
and the client. This potentized item, when fed to the
victim, will cause him or her to be infatuated with or
subjugated to, the client. Good looking, young, and
unmarried people are especially susceptible to ahudi.
Mothers-in-law often resort to it to make their son or
daughters-in-law subservient to them. I was often told by
well wishers not to eat or drink anything offered by
practitioners when I went to talk to them, or sat through
their healing sessions, just in case they tried to do ahudi
to me.

"Medicines" are also often done to people so as to make
them disinterested in their work, in their families, or in
life in general. As already mentioned earlier, Brojen
Sharma said he had "medicines" done to him so as to make him
"brainless". I have also been told of brides or bridegrooms
being fed "medicines" that made them scream and shout and
run away from their new spouse.

Another way of administering ku mantras into someone’s
family is by burying potent items in people’s courtyards or

houses. These items could be bundles containing human hair,

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nails, bones from the cremation ground, and various other
things which differ, depending on the purpose and the
practitioner. Or they can be amulets with mantras written
or chanted inside them, and hidden inside the house. Or
they may be any other medium that can hold the mantra.
Nripen Goswami told me of a method by which a practitioner
needs to get some soil from a cremation ground, from the
cremation spot of a person who died on a Saturday or a
Tuesday. Saying a particular mantra in the name of the
victim, on that soil, and blowing on the soil three times,
he leaves it on the victim’s house or courtyard on a new
moon night, on a tuesday or saturday. These ku mantras can
create a wide range of problems and can even bring a family
to ruin. He also spoke of another set of mantras, which
unscrupulous bej use to help thieves or lovers. These
mantras, when chanted on some soil collected while an
earthquake is going on, and thrown on the roof of a house,
will make the owners of the house sleep through a theft or a
lover’s rendezvous. Practitioners who use these mantras
therefore collect the soil during an earthquake and stock it
to chant on later whenever needed by a client.

Some ku mantras do not need a medium such as food,
soil, a bundle or an amulet. Dharmeshwar Goswami told me
about a mantra he possessed, which he had to chant in a
victim’s name on a glass of water. Then, if he (the

practitioner) drank that water, looking at the sun and

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thinking of the victim, misfortune and danger (bipod) will
come to the victim. He said that this and several other
such mantras were in the collection that he destroyed when
he gained spiritual enlightenment.

Ku mantras can be done to "tie" (bondha) up a person in
various ways. A very common form is to "tie" up a person’s
marriage (biya bandhi thowa) so that he or she is unable to
get married till the "tie" (baandh) is removed. A woman’s
womb is often "tied" up (gorbho bandhi thowa), thus making
her childless. A student’s education can be "tied" up
(vidya bandhi thowa) so that he or she cannot do well in
studies.

Ku mantras are diagnosed through divination. Besides
ascertaining whether the person’s problems are due to ku
mantras or not, divination can tell how the bad mantras were
administered, and where the bundles, or amulets containing
bad mantras are buried. Divination can sometimes help in
identifying both the practitioner who administered the bad
mantra as well as the person who hired the practitioner.

But a lot of clients told me that practitioners would often
not tell them the name of the person who had the bad mantras
inflicted on them. This they said, was to maintain harmony
within friends and relatives, as most of the time, it was
this group that hired practitioners to cause harm, because
of envy or enmity. Clients have also told me that they

themselves would rather not know who did them harm, as the

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knowledge would only create a conflict situation.

There are mantras to counteract the ku mantras, and
that is what all the practitioners I talked to said they
did. After getting rid of the bad mantra, some of them also
"tied" a client with good mantras so as to protect the
victim from such mantras in future. An observation I made
though was that in some arenas the line between good and bad
was hazy, and contextual. I saw Samaresh Chakrabarty refuse
to help a woman who wanted something to make her son-in-law
pay more attention to his wife’s opinions rather than his
mother’s. But he gladly helped a woman who wanted something
to make her son and daughter-in—law subservient to her.

When I asked him why, he said that a man’s duty is to be
obedient to his mother, and not to his wife --- he is his
mother’s son, not his wife’s. Hence, it would have been
wrong for him to help the first woman, as his mantras will
cause the son to neglect his mother. On the other hand, it
is a daughter-in-law’s duty to serve her mother-in-law.
Since she was not doing that, he helped the mother—in-law to
make her subservient. Most practitioners also saw no harm in
helping their clients influence their bosses’ decisions
through mantras, especially in times of crucial promotions
or to counteract transfer orders. The most common
explanation given is that they are helping their clients to

solve their problems, and not helping them harm others.

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Ghosts (Bhoote dhora) and Spirits (Bira loga). One of the
reasons bej and ojhas are feared is because they can set up
ghosts and spirits (bhoot, bira) on people. The terms bhoot
and bira are often used synonymously, but some people make a
distinction that biras are always owned by bej or ojhas and
are always deliberately inflicted by them. Both biras and
bhoots may be spirits of dead people, or they may also be
other supernatural beings. Bhoots, though sometimes owned
by people, are usually independent and may mischievously or
accidentally inflict themselves on someone. When bhoots
inflict themselves upon humans, they are often refereed to
as "winds" (hawa botah) or a "bad wind" (beya hawa) because
they touch a person suddenly and unexpectedly, like a
breeze. Such "winds" can cause a person to become ill or
behave in uncharacteristic ways or go insane. Ghosts may,
among others things, be attracted by or caught in the long,
flowing hair of a woman, especially if she is out alone at
noon or at night, or by a person who passes under a banyan
tree late at night, or by a small child left alone outside
the house. A menstruating woman is especially vulnerable to
"winds", and women in that condition are usually told not to
go under large trees.

Ghosts and spirits that are deliberately inflicted are
tamed and owned (puhe) by the bej or ojha who use them.
Brojen Sharma described one of the procedures used by these

practitioners to make these beings work for them.

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Suppose there is a man who is strong, healthy, and
I want his spirit (atma). Dhanantari texts have
certain techniques by which the ojha, using
mantras, can shoot at (baan maribo) that atma.

The baan will make the person "dry out" and
eventually reach the point of death. Just before
the person dies, the ojha will then establish
contact with that atma, and show it some kind of
bait, usually food. The atma then, on leaving the
body, follows the ojha. For twenty-one days the
atma will be kept in a specific place, like a
cremation ground, or under a tree, "tied" to the
place through mantras. During those days, the
ojha will not go to the place at all, and the atma
will be totally isolated. After twenty-one days,
the ojha will teach things to the atma through
mantras. These lessons are only possible through
mantras. After about six months, the atma will be
tested by the ojha, who will give it a tub of
water and ask it to throw the water at some
specified place. If the spirit obeys, the ojha
will know that it has become a bira and has been
subjugated. It will do whatever he tells it to do
and he can inflict this bira on others. But all
this is done through mantras. Even the orders are
given through mantras.

Once inflicted, biras can cause problems ranging from
simple, mischievous acts, like things disappearing in front
of people’s eyes, or beds forcefully shaken at night,
startling the sleeper, to causing conflicts, various kinds
of illnesses, as well as madness in the family. In my
observation, though, a lot of the stories and anecdotes of
people’s experience with biras revolve around biras
harassing and tormenting victims by scaring them. A very
common mischief reported to be caused by biras is having
flames come out all around the house, or curtains catching

fire all of a sudden. Biras are sometimes subsumed under ku

mantras, as it is the bad mantras that set the bira on the

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person or family in the first place. For some
practitioners, setting a bira means setting a force on some
family, a force which may not necessarily be a supernatural
being. Nripen Goswami showed me a mantra in one of his
texts, in which no spirits of dead people or other beings
were necessary to set a bira on someone’s house. At
midnight, on a saturday or tuesday, the practitioner had to
chant that mantra a hundred times, in the victim’s name, on
some home husked rice. These rice grains, when buried under
the victim’s courtyard or house, will keep bursting like
fire crackers all the time. The distinction between biras
and other forms of ku mantras seems to be that biras often
make their presence felt in sudden, perplexing and dramatic
ways. Other ku mantras, though often more harmful, manifest
themselves in more subtle ways.

Biras and bhoots can be identified through divination.
Sometimes, especially when the bira is inflicted by some
other supernatural force rather than a supernatural being,
merely saying the mantras may be enough to get rid of it.
But when the person is caught by a supernatural being, the
bej has to first make the being confess to who it is and why
it has caught the person. If the bej is a good one, he can
very quickly get the being to confess, and, if it had been
deliberately inflicted by someone, give the name of its
master. The being will speak through the person it has

caught. If it is the entire household that it has been

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inflicted on, the bej chooses a particular family member,
and using mantras, makes it speak through that person. Once
the being has confessed, the bej through his mantras makes
it go back to wherever it came from. Practitioners told me
that they conducted a two-language conversation with the
being. Questions, like "who are you?", "where have you come
from?" are asked in Assamese, and everyone present there can
hear and understand these exchanges. But in between these
questions, the practitioner chants mantras so as to enable
the being to respond to those questions. After the being
leaves, the practitioner "ties" the victim or the family
with good mantras so that it cannot catch them again. When
the practitioner makes the being leave, he also asks it to
show a sign that it is gone, like breaking a twig in a tree,
or eating some food that he leaves outside the compound
fence. I have had both practitioners and clients tell me
that they have seen twigs break, or food left outside

disappear soon after the being left.

Startlin sok khowa . Sok khowa occurs when a person gets
startled by sudden surprise or fright. Startling may be
caused by a variety of reasons. Brojen Sharma described
some of the circumstances that could lead to sok khowa as
followed:

Suppose you are going on the road. Suddenly

someone says something very loudly from behind,

startling you. That is very bad. Or suppose you
are going on a boat and you see your shadow in the

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water. You think it is something else, and get

startled. Or you are walking along some lonely

place, or through a cremation ground. You

suddenly see the shadow of a tree moving in the

wind, and thinking it is a ghost (bhoot), get

scared and run. That then makes you ill by

startling. Or if it is raining, and you slip and

fall on the slippery road, you can get startled.

Anything that scares you suddenly can give you sok

khowa. But you are more prone to become ill

because of it, if the startling occurred at noon,

dawn or dusk. These three moments of time (khyon)

are very bad. ‘

According to Nabin Mahanta, fear can cause a person to get
startled, which later turns into an illness (bemar). Most
practitioners agree that persons afflicted by sok khowa
become very sickly, get frequent fevers, do not feel like
staying at home, have difficulty falling asleep at night,
and wake up startled whenever they manage to fall asleep.
They are constantly scared, and cannot stay alone at night.
In severe cases, the person becomes delirious, and can
eventually become mad.“When children get startled, their
stomach gets bloated, they lose their desire to eat, and
cannot sleep.

Though sok khowa seems to be like any other illness,
there is a general idea, both among practitioners and
clients, that these symptoms are only curable through
mantras, and not by a medical doctor. Brojen Sharma, Nabin
Mahanta, Gobordhon Deka, Mihir Sharma and Jitendra Das use a
similar procedure for curing sok khowa. They do mantras on

a bottle of water, and tell the client to mix that water

with more water that the client has to get from one or more

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ponds (pukhuri). The number of ponds differ with the
practitioner. Nabin Mahanta needs the water to be got from
seven ponds, while water from only one pond is enough for
Sharma. The number of ponds specified by other
practitioners range from three to five. All of them insist
that though the water chanted-on can be from a tap, the
chanted-on water is to be mixed with pond water, and not tap
water, for sok khowa to be cured. The startled person has to
drink sips of the mixture of pond and chanted-on water and
bathe with this mixed water. The number of sips of water .
also differ with the practitioner, ranging from three at a
time to seven. Mantras are also induced into the person
through the medium of fruits, particular seeds, or even a

garment, which the startled person has to eat or wear.

Planetapy eonfigpration (groh) Illnesses as well as life

problems are often caused by bad planetary configuration.
Unemployment, the unmarried state of a person, continuous
misfortunes, chronic or severe illnesses, childlessness, and
a multitude of other sources of suffering are all
attributable to unfavorable planets (grohor dosh). The most
common way of diagnosing grohor dosh is through astrology,
by studying the person’s horoscope. In the context of
doing mantras though, most practitioners used their own
shaktis or their regular method of divination to identify

grohor dosh as a possible cause of the client’s problem.

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Amaresh Chakrabarty, in spite of knowing how to read a
horoscope, used match sticks. Birendranath Sharma used
cowrie shells, Brojen Sharma, Nabin Mahanta, and Nripen
Goswami used their own shaktis. Among the practitioners I
talked to, only Satyen Goswami used astrology for diagnosis.
He told me that astrology gives a more in-depth diagnosis of
grohor dosh --- it can say which planet is causing the
problem, which planet is protecting the client, what planets
will cause problems or do good in the future, and so on.
Other methods of divination only give a general indication
that some planet is causing the problem. They cannot
specify which planet, nor can they say anything about the
future.

Whatever the method of diagnosis, the practitioners
claim that grohor dosh can be counteracted by mantras,
usually inserted in an amulet. Though afflictions may
occur because of bad groh (planets) alone, there is also the
general idea that grohor dosh makes the person vulnerable to
other causes of afflictions, such as evil eye, bad mantras,
startling, ghosts and spirits, or illnesses. Remedies for
bad groh therefore often go hand in hand with remedies for

these other problems.

Normal illnesees (E e; bemeg), One of the reasons people

come to these practitioners is to get relief from illnesses.

Most normal illnesses (enei bemar) are diagnosed through '

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symptoms. For a particular set of symptoms, particular
mantras are prescribed in the texts, which the practitioner
has to chant in the prescribed way. The key is in proper
diagnosis. If the symptoms are not accurately matched with
the right mantra, the cure will not come about. If a cure
does not come about with the right mantra said in the right
procedure, the illness moves from being enei bemar to one
that has an underlying cause behind it. Divination is then
resorted to find out that underlying cause --- ku mantras,
birhas, grohor dosh, and so on. In contrast to Ayurveda,
none of the practitioners I talked to thought in terms of
humoral imbalance bringing about illnesses.

Though all the practitioners I talked to treated
illnesses, many of them have their own specialties. The
mantras used, the treatment procedures as well as the
"medicines" given also differ with the practitioner and his
training. Besides mantras for ailments like headache,
stomach ache, nosebleed, boils and carbuncle, some
particular categories can be seen. Some of these categories
are common to most practitioners, while others differ.

One of the categories many practitioners relate to is
pohuta. Though differing in the exact description of
pohuta, most of them see the symptoms as upset stomach,
indigestion, general weakness, acid burps and "drying out",
a common illness category that I will address a little

later. Women are most susceptible to pohuta, especially

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after childbirth. The remedy is to chant mantras (jora) all
over the client, waving a twig, a hand, or a powerful item
like the piece of bone that Amaresh Chakrabarty uses, around
him or her. Amulets and potent water ("cut" water) is also
given by some practitioners.

Another illness very commonly treated through mantras
is baat. The Assamese English dictionary refers to baat as
rheumatism as well as gout. The symptoms that the
practitioners go by to diagnose the ailment is pain around
the body. I have talked to many clients who claimed to be
totally cured of their constant and extreme pain through
mantras. All the practitioners treated pain by first
chanting mantras on the person (jora), and then giving some
"medicines". The medicines differed with the practitioner.
Dayanand Trivedi gave oil with mantras chanted on it, which
the clients had to rub over the painful areas. Amaresh
Chakrabarty gave chanted-on, uncooked rice grains a few
grains of which had to be chewed each day and swallowed with
chanted-on water. He also secured a particular root to
seven strands of black or white thread (jaap), each strand
having a mantra chanted on it. The strands with the root
are tied to the person’s waist, ankles or wrists till the
pain subsides.

Jaundice, a very common waterborne disease in Assam, is
treated by mantras very frequently. I have talked to highly

educated, westernized Assamese, who have resorted to mantras

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when their children have had the disease. Different
practitioners have different treatments for jaundice, but
the common element is the use of mantras to get rid of the
yellowness inside the body, which is seen to cause the
disease. The yellowness is got rid of in different ways.
The most common way is to have the client wash their hands
with potent water. I have seen Amaresh Chakrabarty use this
method. The treatment has to be done early in the morning,
before six A.M. Mantras are chanted on a bucket of water,
and on some mango bark. Samaresh Chakrabarty pours water
from the bucket into the client’s hands while chanting
mantras and the client "washes" his or her hand with the
bark, using it as though he or she would use a piece of
soap. This treatment is repeated for several days. On the
first day the water that emerges from the hand washing is
very yellow in color. With each passing day of treatment,
this water becomes less and less yellow, and finally, when
the client is rid of the jaundice, the water emerges clear.
Brojen Sharma, Jitendra Das, and Gojen Barua also recognize
this technique and said that they used it.

"Women’s illness" (maikimanuhor bemar) is a category
these practitioners are seen to be very good at treating.
The predominant problems treated as "women’s illness" are
painful menstrual periods, menstrual irregularities and
leukorrhea (boga saab). The English term leukorrhea was

used by Samaresh Chakrabarty to explain the illness to me.

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Besides the physical symptoms of a white discharge, a woman
having this illness also gets very emotional, feels sad
(bejar pai) when anyone says anything to her, feels dizzy
and sees dark patches in front of her eyes. She also starts
to "dry out". Most of the practitioners I talked to called
these "women’s illnesses" very serious conditions in a girl
or a woman, especially since they could lead to
childlessness. In fact, treatment for these conditions
often went prior to treatment for childlessness. These
practitioners are also often resorted to in times of
childbirth, to get an amulet or potent water to ease the
process of giving birth. The treatment for "women’s
illnesses" involve chanting mantras on the woman, as well as
on some medium, usually bananas, water, or betel nut which
the client has to eat or drink. Often an amulet also has to
be worn.

A category both practitioners and clients relate to is
that of a person "drying up" (sukai jowa). Though the term
"drying up" is sometimes used in conjunction with the term
for getting thinner (khinai jaws) to refer to a person
rapidly losing weight for no apparent reason, it has a much
broader connotation. A "dried up" person’s skin becomes
very sallow, and he or she lacks the sparkle and lustre of
life. In extreme cases, the person loses so much weight
that he or she is reduced to just skin and bones. "Drying

up" can be brought about by normal illness, inadequate diet,

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worry, or by other causes such as evil eye, bad mantras or
ghosts and spirits. Amaresh Chakrabarty diagnoses illnesses
caused by "drying up" by examining the person’s chest bone.
If the end of the chest bone protrudes out of a bony chest,
he calls it haar barha (enlarged bone). Haar barha, for
him, is both a cause as well as a symptom of "drying up".
The remedy for it is that the client has to wear a cowrie
shell with mantras chanted on it as a locket, so that the
shell sits on the "enlarged" bone. Samaresh Chakrabarty
claims that the bone enlargement subsides after the shell is
worn continuously for a few weeks, and clients testify to
the validity of the claim. Another reason a person can "dry
up", according to the Chakrabarty brothers is because of the
liver getting "elongated" (liver to dighol hoi jai). They
use the English word liver to mean the stomach area, and the
sign of "liver enlargement" is that the stomach protrudes
out, feels hard and makes a hollow sound when patted. A
symptom of liver enlargement is constant stomach problems,
and both children and adults are prone to the condition.
One of the causes of an "enlarged liver" is faulty
digestion, brought about by inadequate or improper diet,
like too much fried or spicy foods. Sometimes children who
are breast fed get it from their mothers, especially if the
mothers have pohuta. The remedy for this ailment is to hang
a chanted-on raw banana stuck with date thorns over the

cooking stove and to feed the sick person chanted-on salt

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and water. Haar barha and "elongated liver" often go
together, one leading to the other. Therefore, the two are
often treated together.

A person may also "dry out" if they pass bodily
substances (dhatu) like blood or semen out of the body,
usually through the urine. Young men are specially prone to
it, and there is a general idea that constantly passing out
dhatu may make a man impotent. Leukorrhea is also seen as a
way of dhatu loss. Dhatu loss is a condition that is seen
to be incurable by medical doctors. The remedy for it is
mantras chanted on some medium like salt or water, that the

client has to ingest.

Bites, Stinge end Pricks, Snakebites, animal bites, or

stings and pricks from insects, fish or plants form a
category of problems perceived to be very easily curable by
mantras. Snake bites are often put in a different category
from other bites. I was told that not all practitioners
treat it, as these mantras were originally owned by a
special group of people, and the knowledge was not easily
available to all. I was also told that the practitioners
using these mantras need to perform special exercises to
maintain their efficacy. Of the practitioners I talked to,
only Dayanand Trivedi, Gojen Barua, and Dharmeswar Goswami
claimed to cure snake bites. Dayanand Trivedi is so

confident of his siddhi (spiritual success) in snake mantras

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that he claims they work even if he chants them on the
telephone. But I was told by an informant that to maintain
this siddhi, Trivedi has to perform special spiritual
exercises (sadhana) every six months.

The most common method of treating snake bites is that
the practitioner first chants a mantra and then slaps the
bitten person just above the wound. The slap pushes the
mantra inside the person and prevents the venom from moving
upwards. The practitioner continues chanting, and gradually
the venom disappears into the ether.

Most practitioners seem to be able to treat pricks and
stings, especially the painful pricks caused by a fish
called singi fish, fish bone stuck to a person’s throat,
thorns, sometimes even poisonous ones, from plants, and
allergy caused by caterpillar hair. These are very common
everyday occurrences, and are seen to be instantly cured by
mantras. Practitioners usually chant mantras on a bowl of
water and clients claim that they have seen the offending
bone, or thorn or hairs come out of the client’s body and

fall into the bowl, as if from nowhere.

REMEDIES.

After the problem has been diagnosed, the practitioner
needs to remedy the situation. In this section, I describe
the various forms of remedies that practitioners use, to

ease their client’s suffering. None of these remedies are

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mutually exclusive, and more than one of them are used
simultaneously, or one after the other. But for purposes of
analysis, I lay them out as separate categories in this

section.

Chanting and Blowing (JOra Phuka). Doing mantras is almost

synonymous with jora phuka. JOra refers to potentizing
something by chanting mantras into it while waving a hand,
or a blade of grass, or some other item over it. Phuka
refers to potentizing something by chanting mantras and then
blowing the mantras into the object to be potentized. Jora
phuka can be done on humans, or on any other medium. Most
remedies given by practitioners involve some form of jora
phuka. They are the means by which the mantra gets into the
person or object to bring about a desired effect.

The most common form of jora phuka is pani kota
("cutting water"). The term gets its name from the
procedure used to potentize the water. The practitioner
chants mantras over a bowl of water, while making cutting
motions over it with a blade of grass. Cutting the water
with the blade of grass enables the power of the mantra to
go into the water. This "cut" water, when mixed with normal
water, potentizes that water. The client has to drink sips
of this potent water and bathe with it. Rubbing this water
into afflicted parts of the body is said to give relief.

"Cutting water" is the most basic bejali technique with

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which all practitioners start their training. But I have
noticed that practitioners like Dayanand Trivedi, the
Chakrabarty brothers, and Nripen Goswami do not make the
cutting motions. They simply chant the mantras on a bottle
of water and the power of the mantra, combined with their
own power gets into the bottle. This ability, they say,
come out of their siddhi (spiritual success) and practice.
Lower level practitioners, according to them, need to go
through the entire routine. Pani kota, also called pani
jora, is used to counteract evil eye, bad mantras,
startling, ghosts and spirits, illnesses as well as for
problems like a client’s trees not producing fruits.

JOra phuka is also done on people to get rid of their
ailments. Clients claim to get relief when mantras are
chanted on (jora) or blown into (phuka) ailing parts of the
body. Sitting through Dayanand Trivedi’s healing sessions,
I have seen clients come in with so much pain that they have
to be half carried into the room. After Trivedi’s chanting
and blowing, and sometimes even hitting mantras into their
bodies, many of these clients would hobble out of the room
without anyone’s support. The Chakrabarty brothers
constantly chant mantras into clients for ailments, for
general well being, for concentration and better memory
while studying for exams (vidya jara), as well as for making
children obedient to their elders (kotha suna). I have

seen mothers bring their children to the brothers when they

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have fever. The remedy for fever is to jara the person for
three consecutive days, and to give "cut water". The
mantras for the three days follow in a sequence, and there
is a different mantra for each day. The mothers claim that
the fever gets better each day, and by third day of

chanting, it is usually gone.

"Medicines" (Aushad). The term "medicines", in the context
of jora phuka and doing mantras, refers to mediums on which
mantras are chanted, and which the client has to ingest, so
as to get the power of the mantra into his or her body. It
is essentially the same thing as "cut water", except that
"cut water" is not solely for ingestion. The mediums used
for "medicines" differ with the practitioner. They can
range from potentized edible flowers or leaves to seeds,
fruits, sugar, salt, even uncooked rice grains.

"Medicines" are given for a wide range of purposes and
are not confined to treatment of illness alone. Amaresh
Chakrabarty potentizes sugar for children to help them in
their studies. Using another mantra, he potentizes sugar to
bring in better relations between people in whose names
mantras have been chanted. Mantras chanted on sugar also
makes children obedient to their parents and grown ups
obedient to the person whose name is on the mantra. He
potentizes bananas to help cure "women’s illnesses", and

tender coconuts to cure prolonged and chronic stomach

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problems. He chants mantras on honey to cure appetite loss
brought about by pohuta or "liver problems". Similar
"medicines" are given by all other practitioners. There are
specific instructions on how to take these "medicines".
Some can only be taken after a bath, with some "medicines",
the person has to abstain from certain foods, while some,
like the bananas for "women’s illnesses" have to be taken
once a day, early morning, on an empty stomach. "Medicines"
are also used to bring out "bad medicines" fed to a person
through ku mantras. "Medicines" when fed to a person
"caught" by a ghost or a spirit makes that being "confess"

its presence very easily.

Non-Ingeseed Chanted—on Items. This is a form of jora

phuka where mantras are chanted on some medium, which, when
kept in close association with the problem, helps in
alleviating or getting rid of the problem. Mustard, cumin
and fenugreek seeds are often chanted on and sprinkled
around a person’s bed and under their pillow to prevent
recurring bad dreams and to get rid of insomnia. Iron nails
are chanted on and buried in the four corners of a house to
protect the members from evil eye, bad mantras and
misfortune. A similar precaution is taken by chanting
mantras on raw grains of rice and sprinkling the rice around
the compound of a house. These chanted-on items can even

bring tenants into a house that the owners are having

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trouble getting rented. Mantras are chanted on a box of
vermillion powder, and the powder, when worn by a wife on
her forehead and on the parting of her hair can make an
errant husband come back to her. In cases of stomach
problems, the Chakrabarty brothers take a raw banana, and
stick seven date thorns to it, chanting a mantra while
sticking each thorn. This banana is then hung over the
cooking stove of the client’s household. The general idea
is that the enlarged liver, like the banana, will gradually
shrivel up and get smaller. The heat of the stove, which
the banana takes in, is also seen to resemble the excess
internal heat of the sick person. When the banana is
totally dry, it has to be dropped in a bucket of water so as
to cool off the excess heat it has absorbed. If this
procedure is followed correctly, the sick person’s
"elongated liver" will come back to its normal size. This
is one of their most commonly given remedies, and many
clients have told me that their own or their children’s
chronic stomach problems were totally cured by it. The
brothers also chant mantras on an olive seed, which the
client wears as a locket, tied to a thread around their
neck. Olive seed, according to them is a very good medium
for five illnesses —-- high and low blood pressure,
diabetes, head reeling, tonsillitis, and piles
(hemorrhoids). Each of these illnesses needs a different

mantra to be chanted on the olive seed. Another remedy the

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Chakrabarty brothers use very often is chanting mantras on a
shell, which the client wears around his or her neck. A
cowrie shell is used for "enlarged bone", while another kind
of shell is used for breathing problems. Dayanand Trivedi
chants mantras on a brass plate which the client has to keep
in contact with his or her back for about half an hour every
day, to cure sciatica pain. These are only some of the
examples of the various kinds of mediums used, which differ

with the practitioner.

Chanted-on Folde of Thread (Jaap). Mantras are often

chanted on threads which are worn around the neck, waist,
wrists or ankles. Strands of thread are seen as a very good
medium to hold particular mantras which need to be in
constant contact with the person’s body. Thread from a roll
is folded (jaap) into several strands, usually with a mantra
chanted at each fold. The folds are then braided or
knotted together so as to give it thickness. The mantras
differ with the purpose and with the practitioner. Threads
are mainly used to protect a person from spirits, from evil
eye, and for general well being. They are also used for
pain. I have seen Nabin Mahanta give a thread to be tied to
the wrist of a baby who cries excessively. The Chakrabarty
brothers make a jaap out of seven strands of thread, with a
mantra for each strand. They also sometimes tie a particular

root to the threads. They then tie the threads to the

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painful part of the body --~ to the ankles and wrist for
joint pain, to the waist for backache, and to the hair for
headaches. I have talked to clients who claim to be totally
cured of their severe and chronic pains after tying these

threads.

Amulets Tabee' and Kabash . Mantras are very frequently
chanted or written into amulets (tabeej) which are then worn
around the neck, waist or arm, or kept around the house, a
shop’s cash box, and so on. Amulets are so common in India,
that empty amulet shells are available in the market. These
shells are made of different kinds of metals --- copper,
brass, silver or gold. Different mantras need different
metals to contain them, and clients can buy a shell in
whatever metal the practitioner recommends. The
practitioner then uses the shell to prepare the amulet in
the client’s name. According to most practitioners, Tantric
amulets often have diagrams (yantra) inside the shell, with
mantras written inside the diagram. The client's or the
victim’s names are filled in at specific spots within the
mantra. Non-Tantric amulets usually have a chanted-on
flower, ashes from a ritual fire, or other small object
sealed into the amulet. Gojen Barua and Nabin Mahanta told
me that they never use diagrams. Most others use a
combination of the two kinds.

The Chakrabarty brothers get so many clients needing

165
amulets that Samaresh draws the most frequently used
diagrams ahead of time in little pieces of paper and keeps
them in separate, labelled boxes, so as not to waste time
during the healing sessions. When a client needs one of
those diagrams for an amulet, all that the brothers need to
do is to fill in names of the person or persons in the
required spaces. I have seen many regular clients fill in
the names themselves instead of bothering the brothers who
are always very busy catering to their large clientele.
After they have filled in the names, they give the empty
amulet shell and the paper to one of the brothers, who puts
the paper inside, chants a mantra, and seals the amulet.
Often, the thread on which the amulet has to be worn needs
to be chanted on too.

The brothers have eleven small, labelled boxes of
diagrams, and I think that these boxes well reflect the most
common concerns that clients come to them with. These boxes
are labelled as such:

Kanna, or crying. This diagram is put into an amulet given
to babies who are very cranky, and constantly crying.
Vidya, or knowledge. This diagram is for amulets given to
students to enable them to do well in studies.

Groh, or planets. This diagram is put in amulets worn in
order to counter-act the effects of bad planetary
configurations.

JWar, or fever. This is used in amulets given to people who

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have already been chanted-on for three days for fever.
After their fever decreases they are given this amulet to
prevent the fever from coming back again.
Pohuta. This is used in amulets given to women who have
pohuta, an illness category that I have already talked about
in the previous section.
Gabondhoni, or "tying up the body" and nojor, or evil eye.
This diagram is used in an amulet given for general
protection of a person. The most constant protection a
person needs is from evil eye. But the amulet also protects
its wearer from startling, ghosts and spirits, and frequent
illnesses. It "ties up" the wearer’s body so that no harm
can enter into it from any quarter.
Biye, or marriage. This is an amulet given to young women
or men to boost their marriage prospects.
Kala, or bananas. This is a diagram used in an amulet given
to women and girls for "women’s illnesses", after they have
eaten chanted-on bananas for twenty one days.
Santaan, or children. This amulet is given to women as a
part of their treatment for childlessness.
Bicched, or to separate. This diagram is used in an amulet
which separates two people. This amulet is given when a
person has an extra marital affair, when someone falls in
love with an unsuitable person, and even to get interfering
in-laws out of the way. The prepared amulet, when buried

under a Pipul tree, will bring about the separation.

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Madhu, or honey. The purpose of this amulet is opposite to
that of the one just mentioned. This amulet brings two
people closer. Conflict between spouses, confliCt between
siblings, conflict with bosses or co workers, even when
brought about by other’s bad mantras or someone’s evil eye
can be resolved by dropping this amulet in a bottle of honey
that the brothers keep for the purpose.

Sometimes more than one diagram is used in an amulet so
as to enable the same amulet to cater to many problems. For
example, the diagrams for knowledge, general protection and
evil eye are often used together for children. I have seen
the diagrams for education, marriage, general protection as
well as an additional one for jobs put into an amulet for a
twenty four year old female student. The general idea,
according to Samaresh, was to get her life in some sort of
order, either by marriage, or by doing very well in studies,
or by getting a job. These eleven kinds of amulets just
mentioned do not cover the entire range of amulets that the
brothers give. These are the ones in greatest demand, but
other amulets are also given for various purposes. Though
other practitioners do not have their diagrams written ahead
of time and organized into neat boxes, they also give very
similar kinds of amulets for similar purposes. Amulets are
usually used in conjunction with other remedies like jhar
phook and "medicines".

Some amulets, called kabash, do not need an amulet

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shell to contain the mantra. Some practitioners see no
distinction between tabeej (amulet inside a shell) and a
kabash, while others do. According to Satyen Goswami and
Brojen Sharma, the two are very different. Kabash is
Tantric, according to them, while a tabeej can be given by
both Tantrics and non-Tantrics. A kabash always needs a
diagram inside it. To make the kabash, the person has to
first cleanse and purify himself, eat vegetarian food, stay
in prayer for a period of time, and then write the yantra
(diagram), usually in bark. The diagram then has to be
embedded in metal, usually in gold or silver, by a
goldsmith. Kabash, according to them, though usually worn
on the neck or on the arm, are also sometimes inserted
inside the person by cutting the skin and embedding the
kabash inside. They claim that people who have powerful
kabash inside their skin do not need to worry about any kind
of danger.

Though Brojen Sharma and Satyen Goswami call kabash a
Tantric item, Gojen Barua, who denies being a Tantric, also
uses them. The Raj Mohini mantra, which he claims to be
known for, is made out of dried, potentized flowers,
embedded into a gold and silver kabash. Dharmeswar Goswami
and Amaresh Chakrabarty, both of whom have Tantric training
do not see much difference between the two. The major
distinction seems to me to be in the way the two kinds of

amulets are prepared. A tabeej is prepared by filling an

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empty amulet shell, bought from the market, with potent
words and substances, and sealing it. Kabash is prepared by
first making the potent substances and then embedding them
into a customized frame. The preparation of a kabash is

more time consuming and more expensive.

Sessions to get rid of ghests and spirits or bad mantras

from client’s premises. Practitioners like Brojen Sharma,
Nabin Mahanta, Jitendra Das, Nripen Goswami, and Dharmeswar
Goswami often go to client’s houses to uncover bundles
containing bad mantras or to chase away ghosts or spirits
(biras) from client’s bodies or premises. Using mantras and
divination, they say that they are able to pin point the
exact location of harmful items, even if these are buried
under wells or large ponds. Clients claim to have seen
these items as they were uncovered. These practitioners say
that they also talk to ghosts and spirits and persuade them
to leave the person or the family. Once the harmful items
have been recovered, or the spirit has left, the
practitioner gives a protective amulet to prevent future

attacks.

Advice. Practitioners often counsel and advise clients on
their courses of action, based on what they diagnose through
divination. Clients come for advice on a variety of

dilemmas. Nabin Mahanta and Nripen Goswami are often taken

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by clients to their homes or properties for their guidance
on where to construct new buildings or set up new machinery.
They help clients in making decisions whether or not to
think of a child’s marriage at that particular period of
time, whether to go on a particular journey or not, whether
to accept or reject a particular alliance, whether to stand
for office during forthcoming elections or not, whether
someone will get a job quickly or not, where a missing
person will be found, and so forth. Most practitioners are
very good at giving this sort of advice, and counselling
forms a major part of their duties.

One of the major worries mothers have about their young
children is their studies. Mothers constantly come to
practitioners complaining about their children not studying.
I have often observed children being brought to the
Chakrabarty brothers for this problem. The brothers in turn
scold the children and tell them about the importance of a
good education in these days of competition. Children are
advised to prevent confusion of the mind and to concentrate
on their studies if they want to do well in life. They seem
to connect high education with good behavior and a pleasant
personality. In fact, I was often pointed out to children
as an example of how well behaved and pleasant a highly
educated person is!

The Chakrabarty brothers also advised their clients on

which medical doctor to go to for their specific problem, on

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birth control strategies, and various other day to day

concerns .

CONCLUSION.

Analyzing the general structure of the interaction
between practitioner and clients it is possible to get some
sense of the assumptions about reality underlying such
interactions. The general picture that emerges is that of a
world consisting of various kinds of forces and dangers
which can afflict humans in different ways. There are
supernatural beings lurking around, which can inflict
themselves upon people. There are also people who keep
various kinds of supernatural beings to do their bidding.
Sometimes these people deliberately bid the beings they
control to harm others. There is also the force of other’s
words and envious thoughts which can bring about affliction.
There are forces which can frighten and startle people and
make them ill. There are snakes and other creatures that can
bite, sting or prick. A very powerful force is that of
mantras. Harmful mantras can bring about affliction and
misfortune to the victim and his or her entire family.

There are also configurations of planets that can cause
problems in people’s lives. Besides these forces, the human
body also gets ill periodically, for no underlying reason.

All these dangers that the world presents can be

resolved in a culturally typical way --- by mantras. The

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force of mantras, which can cause suffering can also be used
to alleviate that suffering. Good mantras, when chanted
into people’s bodies or ingested can help relieve
affliction. They can be contained in amulets or threads, or
garments and worn on the body. They can also be contained
in other mediums and kept around people’s houses or premises
to get rid of and prevent problematic situations. Mantras
are thus seen as a source of power that can help people deal
with affliction, misfortune, and the experience of

suffering.

CHAPTER 6
THE CLIENTS

In the previous chapter, I had analyzed the structure
of the cultural schema of the practice of mantras in terms
of divination, diagnosis, and remedies. In this chapter I
look at how these techniques and ideas are used in actual
practice in the interactions between practitioners and
clients. As already stated in Chapter 1, I look at
cultural schemas as a cultural means of interpreting,
understanding and resolving various situations in similar
ways -—- in terms of mantras. As these situations often
reflect culturally typical afflictions, dilemmas and
misfortunes suffered by the client, the focus here will be
on the clients and the problems they bring to the
practitioners. I discuss some of the concerns most commonly
addressed by the practitioners by illustrating them with the
help of particular interactions that I observed as well as
with accounts narrated to me by clients. My aim is to
select a range of different problematic situations so as to
give a sense of the variety of reasons for which clients go
to these practitioners, and the variety of issues that are
dealt with through mantras. Looking at particular
interactions and specific cases will also give some idea

about(how various forms of divination, diagnosis and

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174
remedies are combined together by the practitioner,
depending on the situation that the client brings to him?)
(One of the questions people ask me when they hear‘
about my research is "Are mantras really efficacious?" It
is very difficult to get concrete data to prove efficacy,
especially since it deals with people's own notions of what

is efficacious. I feel that a very good source of getting a

sense of how effective the actors view a practice to be is U“;

from their own testimonies. Some of the clients I have
talked to speak about the effectiveness of the remedies, the
power of the practitioners, and experiences that made them
believe in the practitioners and their practice. Such
testimonies are scattered throughout the chapter?)

The cases I have chosen have been selected from
sessions conducted by the various practitioners I have
talked about in Chapter 4. Since emphasis here is on the
range of problems brought by the clients to the
practitioners, clients of some practitioners may be
discussed more than others. This is specially so in case of
the Chakrabarty brothers because they have an extremely
large and regular number of clients to see them every day.
The range of problems that their clients present is
therefore much bigger than those presented by the clients of
the other practitioners. Some practitioners were also
uneasy about letting me into their sessions, and so their

clients are not discussed as much as others.

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ILLNESS. (One of the reasons clients resort to mantras is
to get relief from various kinds of illnesses. A majority
of clients I observed came for chronic problems like pain,
asthma, stomach discomfort, high blood pressure, and even
insomnia. Many clients I talked to told me about mantras
curing them of illnesses that they had suffered from for
months or for years. Most of these people had first gone to
medical doctors. It was only when doctors could do nothing
about their ailment that they had come to these
practitioners. Many had also tried Ayurvedic and
Homeopathic medicines. Minor illnesses like fever or
toothache are also treated through mantras) I have seen
mothers come very often to the Chakrabarty brothers when
their children have a fever, or a loss of appetite.

The first case I describe in this section is about a
chronic illness. Loni Barua was an eight-year-old girl from
a well to do, Western educated family. She was suffering
from asthma since she was a baby and could not sleep at
night due to breathing difficulties. I was told that she
had been hospitalized once because of an acute asthma
attack. When I first saw her in Dayanand Trivedi’s
session, she had already been under his treatment for two
weeks. Her mother said that she had been sleeping well
every night since she came under his treatment. The
treatment had to be repeated every week till she was cured.

Trivedi first blew mantras into her chest and then blew

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mantras into a bottle of water they had brought from home.
Half way through blowing, he asked her father if she had
tonsillitis. The father said yes, and Trivedi also blew in
a mantra for tonsilitis into the bottle. He asked her
parents to give her some of the water to drink early in the
morning on an empty stomach. That was for her tonsilitis.
The same water was to be given later in the day also, as
many times as possible, for her asthma. He specified that
the early morning water will cure only her tonsilitis, and
will do nothing for her asthma. The mantra for asthma will
work only when the water is given later in the day. Her
mother too was suffering from asthma, so Trivedi chanted and
blew mantras into her chest and potentized another bottle of
water for her. Just before leaving, the child and her
mother touched Trivedi’s feet as a mark of respect. The
parents later told me that they were amazed at the power of
his treatment. They had taken their daughter to many
doctors for her problem, but no one had been able to cure
her. And now, with just two weeks of being chanted-on and
drinking chanted-on water, she was almost cured.

The remedies and procedures used for a particular
problem often differ with the practitioner. Besides
chanting on the person, and giving chanted-on water, the
Chakrabarty brothers also give the client a chanted-on shell
to wear around the neck for asthma, and a potentized olive

seed to wear around the neck for tonsilitis or diabetes. As

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seen in the case just mentioned, Trivedi treated tonsilitis
by chanting a different mantra on the same bottle of water
as that for asthma. I have seen him treat diabetes by
chanting mantras on a lump of sealing wax that the client
has to wear on his or her waist. But chanted—on water seems
to be a common factor with all practitioners.

Pain of different kinds are frequently treated by
mantras, though in slightly different ways depending on the
practitioner, and on the specific characteristic of the
pain. The next few cases are examples of clients who came
for relief from pain. The second example shows how mantras
are also used as a means to prevent pain in future.

Basanti Neog was a client of the Chakrabarty brothers.
She gave me the following account of her daughter's sinus
headaches being cured by Amaresh.

My daughter, studying in class nine (ninth grade)

had acute sinus headaches.. I spent fifteen

hundred rupees for her treatment, but nothing

would cure her. I am speaking in front of Maa

(Mother) Kali, I am not lying, believe me. She

had constant headaches, had become very thin, she

could not eat, could not study. One day she went

for her exams and had to come back half way

through it because of her headache. And she is

very good in her studies too --- always gets the

top positions in her class. Then I thought of

bringing her here, thinking that someone might

have done something bad to her. He chanted on her

head for three days and her headache was cured.

That is why I believe in him.

Ramani was another client of the brothers who wanted

Samaresh Chakrabarty to chant on her back, legs, arms, and

head. She told me that she had been suffering from constant

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pain, which doctors were unable to cure. Then she came to
Amaresh, who cured her completely. So now she gets herself
chanted-on periodically, so as to prevent the pain from
coming back again.

Gauri Devi had come to the Chakrabarty brothers,
because of pain in the lower part of her body, all the way
from her waist down her legs. She complained that the veins
in her legs swell up and it feels like they knot up into a
bundle. This usually happens in the middle of the night,
and she wakes up crying in pain. Her two daughters get up
and massage her leg till the acute pain subsides. Though
she does not get it every night, each time it happens, a
dull pain lingers for three or four days. She had brought a
small packet of uncooked rice, just as Amaresh Chakrabarty
had told her to, and he chanted mantras on the rice. He
then instructed her to eat a few grains of rice twice a day
with some water --- once in the morning and once in the
evening, for eight days.

Jonaki Devi was waiting to consult Nripen Goswami when
I talked to her. She had come that day because of a pain in
her leg. Goswami had given her seven chanted-on silikha
seeds (an edible seed of a particular tree, often used for
religious purposes), to be eaten once a day, for seven days,
along with an amulet, which she was wearing on her waist.
The pain was much better during the last eight days, so she

wanted to ask him if she should get some more silikha seeds.

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Pranati Hazarika, a client of Dayanad Trivedi has been
suffering from rheumatoid arthritis for a few years. She
was wheeled into his office in a wheelchair. This was the
second time she was there. The first time Trivedi chanted
and blew on the painful parts of her body, and gave her a
bottle of chanted-on mustard oil to rub on her body. She
told me that her pain was a little better after using the
oil. Her arms used to be so stiff that she could not even
tie her hair into a knot --- but that morning, she had tied
her hair herself. That day Trivedi repotentized the oil.
and also potentized a bottle of water that she had to drink
and bathe with. He manipulated her hands while chanting
mantras, and tried to take her hands as far back as he
could. He blew mantras into her shoulder blades, hit them
with the bony side of his palm while chanting a mantra. He
chanted on her back, and asked her if the pain she was
having at that moment on her back was better. When she said
it was not, he tried again with another mantra. This mantra
seemed to work, because after he finished chanting, she said
that her back felt much better. He massaged her back while
chanting that mantra again, and instructed his assistant to
say a particular mantra seven times and then blow on each of
her legs twenty-one times. While his assistant was doing
that, he himself worked at pulling and manipulating each
leg. He then asked her to stand up. Her husband rushed

forward to support her, and Trivedi told him to move back.

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Both she and her husband looked extremely worried and
unsure, but when Trivedi strongly insisted, she stood up,
though she could not straighten her back completely. He
chanted on her back and told her to try again. She did so,
and this time stood almost straight. He then told her to
walk. Her husband looked horrified, but Trivedi insisted.
She took a few wobbly steps first and then a few fairly good
ones. The husband looked astounded. He kept telling all
who cared to listen that he had not seen her stand, let
alone walk by herself, for months. When she left Trivedi’s
office, she walked out, supported by a still dazed husband.

Jayanti Barua had come to Dayand Trivedi because of
sciatica pain, which she had been suffering from for two
years. She had been told to bring a brass plate, and
Trivedi chanted on the plate. He told her that the mantra
will make the plate stick to her body. He placed it on her
bare arm and it did not fall off. He asked her to stick the
chanted-on plate on her back for about an hour or two every
day, and also to rub the oil he had potentized on the
painful area three times a day. He also chanted mantras on
the painful parts of her back and leg and hit her back with
the bony side of his palm. She said that the pain already
felt a little better. He assured her that the pain would be
gone soon. I talked to Jayanti about six months later and
she told me that the pain that had been bothering her for

two years was gone within a month of applying the plate on

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her back and leg for an hour every day. She said that every
time she held the plate to her back or leg, she felt a
prickling sensation on the lower part of her body. That is
how she knew that the mantra was working.

Chronic stomach ailments are a very common problem
brought to these practitioners. The Chakrabarty brothers
interpret stomach ailments as being caused by the liver, and
treat it with a chanted-on raw banana stuck with date
thorns, to be hung over the cooking stove, as described in
Chapter 5. Here, I describe a case I observed in one of
Nabin Mahanta’s sessions.

Jatin Bora had been suffering from stomach problems
(petor asukh) for about a year. He had gone to various
medical doctors, but their medicines only gave him temporary
relief. He had come to Nabin Mahanta a week ago, and
Mahanta, holding his ancient coins to his ear, asked his
shaktis what the problem was. He told Bora that they have
said that someone has fed bad "medicines" to him through
food, which were causing his stomach problems, and that
these "medicines" are still inside his stomach. That is why
the doctors’ medicines do not cure him completely. As long
as the bad things are inside he will not get better. To get
rid of the bad "medicine", Nabin Mahanta gave Bora
potentized water to drink and bathe with. Bora had been
doing that regularly for a week and he told me that he had

been feeling much better all week. The day I was there,

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Mahanta gave him the second and final phase of the treatment
--- a few ginger-like roots to chew three times a day, more
water to drink and bathe with, and an amulet to wear. He
said that the root will make the bad "medicine" come out of
his body.

Problems like allergies are also treated by mantras.
Purnima was a client of the Chakravarty brothers, who was
suffering from rashes all over her body. She was told to
get a roll of black thread from the nearby store, and when
she got it, Samaresh folded the strands into jaaps, chanting
mantras into each fold. He tied these threads to her ankles
and wrist, and giving her a long one, told her to go to the
corner of the room and tie that on her waist herself. He
said that he will cut the threads himself after the rashes
are gone. He told her that "these threads are our medicine
for allergy", and that allergies are very unpredictable.

For some peOple they may even take two or three months to
subside. He asked her to abstain from eating eggs, red
pumpkin, cucumber, a kind of greens called pui greens, two
kinds of fish called borali fish and puthi fish, and
shrimps, as these food items will make the allergy worse.

He also told her to bathe every day with water in which neem
leaves have been boiled, as neem water is very good for
allergies.

I observed many women come in to be treated for

"women’s illness". One such woman was Banalata Kalita, who

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was waiting to consult either one of the Chakrabarty
brothers when I talked to her. In her words,

I first came here because of a woman’s
illness. I used to have two or three menses (her
word) in a month, and they were also very painful.
I had gone to doctors, they did a sonography and
found that the uterus had become enlarged. They
told me I had to have an operation. I was very
scared. Then my maid told me one day that there
was this person here, who cured women’s illnesses.
I had heard about him from a relative also, who
had pain all over the body. He had tied threads
to her legs, wrists and back and she was cured.

So I came to him. He told me that I had to eat
twenty— one bananas (chanted-on), one each day,
and had to wear a black thread on my waist, on
which he tied a root. I also could not eat garlic
or meat while I was eating the bananas. He
chanted on the root as well as on the thread. I
wore the thread, and started eating the bananas. I
was cured in about eight days ~-- I did not even
need to eat all the twenty-one bananas. My
illness was so bad that I had to take medicines to
stop bleeding. If I did not take the medicines,
the bleeding would come again with the slightest
amount of hard work, like sweeping the floor,
washing clothes, etc. All that has stopped now.
The uterus has also become smaller. I have not
gone for another sonogram, but I can make out just
by touching. I could feel a swelling in my
stomach area in the past, but not any more. And
anyway, the symptoms are gone. Seven months have
passed now, and the symptoms have not come back.

Associated with women’s illness are anxieties related
to pregnancy --- inability to conceive, prevention of
miscarriages and bringing about a smooth childbirth. The
next two clients had come to the practitioners with some of
these fears. Devi, a client of the Chakrabarty brothers
said that she had a miscarriage sometime back, and the
doctors had told her not to try for another baby for six

months. The six months had just passed, and she wanted

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something to bring a baby inside her. Samaresh told her to
get seven bananas chanted on the day after her next
menstrual period was over. She should eat one banana every
morning on an empty stomach for twenty-one days. After that
he will give her an amulet to boost her chances of getting
pregnant. Once she got pregnant, he will give her another
amulet to prevent miscarriage. He told her that he could
not give her the amulet to prevent miscarriage before she
got pregnant because that amulet will "tie up" her body, and
thus prevent even the baby from coming in. Around the time
the baby would be due, another amulet would be given, to
ease birth.

The second case is about Manju, who had come to consult
Nabin Mahanta from a village about twenty miles away. She
had been married for six years, but did not have any
children. She went to many doctors, took many kinds of
medicines, but none of them seem to work. Nabin Mahanta put
the coins to his ear and asked his shaktis what the matter
was. He then told her that his shaktis have told him that
someone has tied up her womb with bad mantras. He also said
that he finds that she has been bathing with "cut" water got
from another practitioner. She was very surprised that he
knew about that and admitted that she had consulted another
practitioner. Mahanta said that he has also found out that
the other practitioner had given her water chanted on with a

good mantra, so he had no problems with that. He then said

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that he could see that there were conflicts at home, and she
said that there was. He said that he will give her an
amulet, "cut" water to open up her tied womb, and
"medicines", and that she should get a baby soon.

The "medicines" he gave her was a root that she had to
eat, three times a day, with some of the potent water he had
given her. She also had to bathe with a mixture of this
water and regular water every two days. He also gave her a
small flower, which had to be kept under the mattress of the
bed that she shared with her husband. The amulet had to be
worn on her waist, tied to seven strands of black thread.

He told her to come back after eight days and get fresh
water and "medicines".

Sometimes, mantras are resorted to because of a feeling
of general weakness that a person might have. Teenagers,
women with children and older people seemed more prone to
general weakness than others. One cause of weakness is seen
to be the cultural category of dhatu (substance) loss, and
teenagers and younger people seem to lose dhatu easily.
Other causes are a lack of proper nutrition, excessive
labor, old age, bad mantras, or evil eye. The next two
cases are examples of the treatment of weakness.

Jogen was a fourteen-year-old boy who was brought to
the Chakrabarty brothers by his mother because he was very
weak and was always very tired. Samaresh called him

forward, chanted on his head, and then asked him to lift his

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shirt so that he could examine his chest. He pointed the
chest bone to his mother and told her that the reason why he
was so weak was because his chestbone was enlarged. He told
her to get a cowrie shell and one meter black thread from
the shop across the street, and she sent her son to buy
these. Samaresh blew and chanted on the shell and also
prepared the thread. When it was ready, he told the boy to
make a hole on the shell, and wear the shell like a locket,
so that it falls on the enlarged chest bone. He also asked
the boy if he passed out anything white in his urine. When
the boy said that he did not know, he asked the boy to
urinate in a bottle the next morning, and set the bottle
aside. He asked the mother to examine the bottle after a
few hours and check if there was any white sediments in the
bottom of the bottle. The white deposits, he said, were
very dangerous, and could be the cause of the enlarged bone.
If there were white deposits, she should bring the boy in
again as he will need to be chanted-on by a different
mantra. In the meantime, he should drink and bathe with
chanted-on water, which Samaresh prepared in his name.

The second example is about Bhanu Das, an eighty-year-
old lady taken to Dayanand Trivedi by her son, who is a high
ranking government official. In her son’s words,

She was very weak, and could hardly walk.

She had been confined to the house with all kinds

of aches and pains for three years or so. Winters

were the worst time --- she would hardly get out

of bed. She is very conservative and does not eat
rice (rice constitutes the main meal) cooked by

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anyone else —-- not even by her daughter-in—law.
So she had almost stopped eating rice in winter,
surviving on foods that need not be cooked. This
made her weaker. Besides, it gave her gastric
ulcers. She got worse each winter, in fact we
were almost sure that she would not survive the
winter two years ago. I took her to Dayanand
Trivedi -—- it was not easy to take her, mind you,
I had to almost carry her from the car to his
office. He chanted on her stomach where she was
having a burning sensation because of her ulcer
and also held her wrist tightly and chanted
mantras, which he said was to get rid of her
weakness and lethargy. She was also given
chanted-on water, and she had to drink two cups of
it everyday. After just two sessions with
Trivedi, she was much better. For the last two
years now, she has been free from pain, does her
own cooking, even in winter, and is not bedridden
anymore. She goes out, goes to weddings, goes
visiting --- things she had totally stopped doing.
Her ulcer is still there --- when it was not cured
in the two sessions we had with him, we did not go
back just for that. It probably needed one or two
more sessions. But what is most important is that
she moves about now, in fact, she is at a wedding,
even as we speak! I am amazed at Trivedi’s
mastery over mantras. I never believed in
mantras, but now I am forced to look at it in a
different light.

The next two cases are of mental illness. The first
client described is Pankaj Pator, a twenty-three year old
student who was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. I met
him and his father at Dayanand Trivedi’s clinic. His father
told Trivedi that he often became very violent. Trivedi
reassured the father that every fifteen days, Pankaj’s
schizophrenia will be ten percent better, and that his
problem would disappear in six months. He chanted and blew

on Pankaj’s head and forehead, and told him that the purpose

of the mantra is to get him to sleep. He potentized a

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bottle of water and told him to mix one part of that water
with six parts of regular water. The mixed water was to be
splashed on his face three or four times a day. At night,
before going to bed, he had to drink a glass of the
potentized water to enable him to sleep. He also told
Pankaj to cut down on tea, as tea can cause sleeplessness.

I talked to Pankaj and his father four weeks later.
Pankaj said that he slept very well these days and felt very
relaxed. When Pankaj was not within earshot, his father
told me that his violent behavior had also decreased.

(The next client I describe is Sameer Choudhury, who,
with his wife Sushmita had travelled about a hundred and
fifty miles to consult Nabin Mahanta. Sameer’s sister, who
was thirty years old, was mentally unstable since she was
about sixteen. They had taken her to all the prominent
psychiatrists in Assam, whose medicines kept her in control
temporarily, but did not cure her. He was now beginning to
wonder whether it was someone’s bad mantras or evil eye that
was causing this problem, and was hoping that Nabin Mahanta
could help. Nabin Mahanta put a handful of ancient coins to
his ear and asked his shaktis what was going on. He then
told Sameer what his shaktis informed him --- that his
sister was suffering from sok khowa (startling) and that
there was no evil eye or bad mantras involved) He told the
brother and his wife to buy a blouse for the sick sister

from the nearby market. They went to buy the blouse while

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Mahanta talked to other clients. When they got back,
Mahanta took the blouse with him to his inner room to get it
potentized.

When he came back he gave the blouse back, along with a
bottle of water, an amulet and nine edible seeds of the
silikha tree, and gave them instructions on what to do.

They were to get water from three different ponds, and mix
them together in a bucket to make a bucketful. Half the
water from the bottle was to be poured into the bucket. The
sick woman was to sit on a low stool in front of the bucket,
with her hair brought forward in front of one shoulder.
Someone should take a mug of water in a small mug, and
pouring a little water on the palm of the sick woman’s hand,
ask her to drink it. The rest of the water in the mug
should be poured over her head. This has to be done two
more times. Then, taking the same mug, eighteen mugs of
water had to be poured on her. Then she should stand up,
and lifting the bucket, pour the remaining water over
herself. She should then change her clothes, and wear the
chanted-on blouse as well as the amulet, which had to be
tied to twenty-one strands of black thread. One of the
seeds was to be wrapped in paper and put inside the cotton
filling of her pillow. She had to eat the rest of the
seeds, one a day, on an empty stomach, with a little of the
remaining half a bottle of water, for eight days. The sugar

had to be eaten three times a day, either with tea or with

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any other food. He repeated this part again to clarify ---
in eight days, she had to eat eight seeds, drink eight parts
of water, and eat sugar twenty-four times. After eight
days, they should bring back the empty bottle, and get more
water, seeds and sugar potentized. The chanted-on blouse
that she would wear after bathing with the chanted-on water
should not be taken off for three days. On the fourth day,
she should take a regular bath and wash the blouse. Nabin
Mahanta warned Sameer Choudhury and his wife that during the
next few days, her illness might increase a little, but they
should not get scared. Sameer Choudhury wanted to know
whether they could continue giving her the psychiatric
medication. She was also wearing two other amulets given by
some other practitioner, and he wanted to know if those
could be worn with this new amulet. Mahanta told them to
stop the medication for a few days, and also to remove any
other amulets she may be wearing.

(Practitioners, especially the Chakrabarty brothers
often advise clients to go to medical doctors for particular
problems, as illustrated in the next two cases. Surabhi
Deka had come to them with her fourteen-year-old son who was
having acute headaches. The boy had headaches sometime ago,
and she had got his head chanted on for three days by
Amaresh. His pain was gone for almost three months after
that, but now it was back again. According to the mother,

he was very weak, he could not study, he had pains in his

191
forehead and eye region, and he felt sleepy when he sat down
to study. She was very concerned because he was a good
student and had a major exam coming up. Samaresh told her
not to do any jhar phook any more, but take him to an eye
specialist instead. The mother said that she had suspected
that he might need glasses, but she wanted Samaresh's advice
before going to an eye specialist. But she still asked him
to chant on the boy’s head, so that he could get some
temporary relief.

A Muslim woman, Nazma, had come to the Chakrabarty
brothers because of pains in her stomach. Samaresh told her
not to eat sour things and started to chant, waving his hand
over her stomach. He found her stomach area very hot to the
touch, and asked her if it was always so hot. She said it
was, especially after she ate anything. Her stomach also
gets bloated after a meal and she feels like going to the
bathroom. Samaresh said that her liver was bad, and asked
her to bring a raw banana, seven date thorns, a small packet
of salt, and a bottle of water the next day. She had
already brought a bottle of water and some salt that day, so
he chanted on them in her name. He then instructed her to
mix a little chanted-on water with regular water in a glass,
and drink it with a little bit of the chanted-on salt, three
times a day. He asked her again not to eat sour or fried
foods and to stop drinking tea for a while. He also told

her that as her stomach was "hot as fire", there must be

192
something else wrong with it, besides the liver problem. He
advised her to go to a medical doctor and take the doctor’s
medication along with the salt and water that he had given

her.

EDUCATION. As already mentioned in Chapter 3, children’s
education is a constant concern of mothers, especially in
urban areas. Studying and doing well in school is
considered the major preoccupation that children should have
during that period of their lives. Mothers consistently
complain about how little their children study, and mantras
are seen to be a means of increasing interest in studies
(porhat mon) and in ensuring high scores in exams. A large
portion of the Chakrabarty brothers’ clientele is composed
of women who come to "get something for (their children’s)
studies". The following two examples illustrate most
interactions in this arena.

A mother had brought some sugar, which she wanted
Amaresh to chant on in the names of her two children, for
their studies. As exams started the following day, she also
wanted the pens and ink bottles of both children chanted on,
so as to enable them to write good exams. He chanted on
the sugar and told her to feed a little bit of that sugar
with a sip of water to her children twice a day --- once in
the morning just before they sat down to study, and once in

the evening, again before studying. To me, the twice a day

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dose of sugar seems to fit in with the general ideal in
India, of good children studying regularly twice a day ---
every morning and every evening, irrespective of whether
they had homework or not.

Another mother had brought a packet of sugar and a
silver amulet shell and asked Samaresh to chant these in the
name of her second son, for studies. The boy, according to
her, had no interest in studies, and did very badly in exams
in the past. But after she fed him Samaresh Chakrabarty’s
chanted-on sugar, his scores improved a little. She
therefore wanted more sugar that day, and also a Saraswati
(goddess of learning) amulet to boost his performance some
more. The boy was already wearing another amulet given by
another practitioner. She asked Samaresh if that might
clash with the new amulet. He said that it would not, and
wrote the boy’s name on a piece of paper having the diagram
for knowledge. He put the paper inside the shell, sealed it
with wax, and chanted a mantra on it. Then chanting on the
sugar, he gave both the packet of sugar and the amulet to
the mother.

The pressure to excel in school perhaps acts as an area
of stress for many children, especially as they reach the
ninth or tenth grade in high school. This is because of a
major exam, called the High School Leaving Certificate Exam
that students have to take at the end of the tenth grade.

Admissions to good colleges depend on the scores of this

194
exam. I saw many mothers come in to consult practitioners
because their children during this crucial period either
lost interest in studies or got ill in various ways. One
such example is about Ruma Devi, a regular client of the
Chakrabarty brothers. When I met her, she had come to the
brothers because her fourteen-year-old daughter, who was
studying for a major exam, suddenly gets ill every evening
at about five. She first gets a fever, then she starts
trembling and saying "that black thing has come again, chase
it away." Amaresh Chakrabarty asked the mother if she had
picked matches to see what was wrong --- whether the black
thing she sees is a ghost or spirit, and if it is, has it
inflicted itself accidently on her, or has someone
deliberately inflicted it with bad mantras? The mother said
that she forgot to pick matches. Amaresh Chakrabarty told
her to bring the girl the next day, with a box of matches,
as it was too late to read matches that day. The mother,
said that coming the next day would be difficult as the girl
had exams. In fact, she was already missing school that day
to come to him. Amaresh then told her that he will do
something to temporarily alleviate the problem for that day,
as she could not afford to be ill the day before major
exams. But she should pick matches at home the next morning
before she went to school, and someone should bring those
match sticks to him so that he would know how to proceed

further to totally get rid of that black thing. Though the

195
mother forgot to pick matches, she obviously had some idea
about what the remedy would be, as she had brought many of
the ingredients with her. The ingredients that she did not
have were bought from the store across the street from the
temple. Amaresh chanted mantras on a small packet
consisting of a combination of mustard, cumin and fenugreek
seeds, so that she would sleep through the night without
waking up or seeing the black thing. He also prepared a
fever and ga-bondhoni ("tying" up the body) amulet (tabeej)
with a copper amulet shell, to prevent the fever coming at
night and for general protection. He also chanted mantras
on a packet of sugar so that she could concentrate on her
studies. The chanted-on seeds had to be scattered around
her bed as well as under her pillow, the amulet had to be
worn around her waist or her neck, and the sugar had to be
eaten three times a day with a sip of water, preferably just
before she sat down to study. He said that though the
normal dose of chanted-on sugar for studies was twice a day,
this girl needed an extra dose as her mind was in confusion
because of her illness. Amaresh also prepared the thread on
which the amulet was to be tied. When it was ready, he
fixed the prepared amulet to it and gave it to the girl,

assuring her that the black thing will not come that night.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS. Lack of a steady income, business

losses, financial difficulties and unemployment are common

196
concerns which bring clients to practitioners. I saw many
store owners who were given amulets to put in their store
cash-boxes so as to boost sales and increase profits.
Clients often told me about unemployed family members who
got jobs after wearing an amulet for aie—unnoti (income-
prosperity). I have also seen clients get an amulet or a
garment potentized, which when worn during a job interview
is seen to increase chances of getting the job. I observed
that economic problems are often at the root of other
problems that clients bring to practitioners, like marital

conflicts, conflict between family members, and so on.

MARRIAGE. Marriage being an issue of utmost importance has
a lot of anxieties associated with it. Getting one’s
daughter married is a prime concern of parents, and I have
seen many parents seek the help of practitioners to increase
the chances of success of a marriage negotiation. Phani
Barua, a client of Brojen Sharma, told me that he had two
younger sisters who had difficulty getting married. The
older of the two was not very good in looks and several
negotiations had therefore failed. Because of the older
sister being unmarried, they could not conduct negotiations
for the younger one as that might hurt the older sister’s
feelings. This is a very common scenario of one sibling’s
marriage prospects being held-up because of an unmarried

older sibling, as ideally, siblings of the same sex get

197
married in descending order. In Assam, this does not apply
to siblings of opposite sexes, and younger sisters are
frequently married off before brothers unless the brothers
are very much older. In this particular case, Phani Barua
brought his sisters to Brojen Sharma, who found out through
his shakti that no one done bad mantras to "tie" up their
marriages. He then gave each of them an amulet which they
had to wear on their waist. He said that these amulets
would bring about desirable parties to conduct negotiations
with. He also told Phani Barua that the day before a
potential bridegroom’s family came to "view" his sisters, he
should bring a new sari and a blouse, which Sharma will
chant on. His sister should wear those potentized garments
when she meets those people so that they will find her
attractive. Phani Barua said he followed Sharma’s
instructions and three months later, the older of the
sisters was married. The second sister also got married a
few months later. As far as Phani Barua is concerned, it is
the amulets and the potentized garments that brought about
those two marriages.

Parents often come to practitioners when their children
fall in love and want to marry someone unsuitable,
especially if the person belongs to a different caste or
religion or to a different socio-economic status. Rupali
Deka, a Hindu woman, told me of her son whose four-year-long

romantic entanglement with a Muslim girl was severed by

198
Nabin Mahanta’s potentized sugar, which she secretly fed her
son for two weeks.

Frequent quarrels between spouses or wife beating, lack
of attraction for a spouse, or an extra-marital affair are
seen to be rectified by mantras. All these often go
together and I observed many clients, especially women, who
came seeking help from marital problems. The case of
Santoshi is one such example. When I first met her,
Santoshi had already been coming to the Chakrabarty brothers
for three weeks in a row because her husband was involved
with another woman. She had been told by the brothers to
get her box of vermilion, a red powder which every Hindu
married woman has to wear in the parting of her hair,
chanted—on in her and her husbands name once a week.

Wearing this chanted-on vermilion in her hair will make him
attracted to her. They also told her to get some sugar
chanted—on in both her and her husband’s names so as to
bring good relations between them, this too once a week.
She had to secretly feed him this sugar in his tea. This
was the second batch of sugar and vermilion she was there to
get that day. She said that though he seemed a little more
interested in her in the last few days, he still had not
left the other woman. Samaresh asked her not to be
impatient. The sugar needed to be chanted-on for seven
weeks and this was only the second week. There was still

ample time for him to come around. He said that there is'a

 

199
different mantra for each week, each mantra stronger than
the previous one. So after the seven mantras have been
chanted and the sugar consumed, he is bound to come around.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, marriage is associated with
various conflict situations and tensions. A common source
of stress is the conceptual opposition between a mother and
a mother-in-law and between a daughter and a daughter—in-
law. Some of these stresses are reflected in the dilemma
faced by the family I describe next.

Jaya and Shoma were wives of two brothers, living in
the same household, which consists of their husbands and
children, their mother-in-law and their husband’s married
sister, Lata. The family has been coming to the Chakrabarty
brothers for many years. On the day I observed them their
mother—in-law had asked them to discuss a family problem
with the brothers. Their husband’s sister, Lata, who was
married more than two years ago, refuses to go to live with
her husband and his family. Every time she goes to their
house, she gets ill, and her mother brings her home.
Samaresh already knew about the problem, and said that it
was their mother-in-law (Lata’s mother) who was to blame for
the situation. He said that Lata was a little mentally
unstable to begin with, and he had told her mother not to
try to get her married, but to take her to a good
psychiatrist instead. But the mother, who was obsessed with

getting her daughter married, refused to acknowledge her

200
daughter’s problem at that time. She had insisted that
Samaresh should give Lata an amulet to get her married.
Lata got married soon after wearing that amulet, but her
mental condition became aggravated after she went to live in
her husband’s home. And now, her mother blames her
daughter’s husband and her in-laws for making life difficult
for her in her married home. Jaya and Shoma confided to
Samaresh that Lata had a rather unpleasant disposition --—
they knew that first hand, as they were often at the
receiving end of her temper. She would also say nasty
things about her husband and his family, and her mother
would encourage her. They also felt that Lata was taking
advantage of her mother’s indulgence by lording over her
brothers’ wives. This was something she could not do in her
husband’s home, where she had to be subservient to others.
Both the sisters-in-law thought that Lata’s husband and his
family were very nice, and were in fact, being very patient
with Lata’s childish behavior.

Samaresh’s advice was to first drop two sets of
amulets, once a week for seven weeks. One set was to be
dropped in honey in the names of Lata and her husband to
bring good relations between them. The other set was to be
buried under a Pipul tree, in the names of Lata and her
mother, so as to sever Lata’s attachment to her mother.’ And
after she goes back to her husband’s house, a third set of

amulets will have to be dropped, these in honey, to bring

201

good relations between her and her husband’s family members.
These three sets of amulets should together succeed in
keeping her there. But the amulets have to be dropped by
Lata’s mother. Samaresh warned the sisters-in-law not to
let their mother-in-law talk them into dropping the amulets.
He reminded them that they were merely her daughters-in-law,
while Lata was her daughter. So if anything goes wrong in
the future, the mother will side with the daughter, and
blame the daughters-in-law. That, according to him, is the
law of nature. Therefore, to be on the safe side, Jaya and
Shoma should maintain their distance in this affair, and be
very discrete in whatever they say about it. He also told
them not to tell anyone except their husbands and mother-in-
law about dropping amulets to make her leave. This might
lead to problems and misunderstandings later on, especially
if Lata’s husband’s family somehow gets to hear about it.

Samaresh prepared the first amulet in Lata and her
mother’s name and gave it to Jaya. He reminded her that her
mother—in-law should bury it under a Pipul tree. He also
told them where to find a Pipul tree in their locality. As
seven such amulets have to be buried, the mother-in-law
should come in a week from that day and get the second
amulet. She should also drop the first of the seven amulets

to be dropped in honey when she comes in next week.

LACK OF INTEREST. I observed many instances of people

202

seeking the help of mantras because a family member had no
interest in the welfare of the family or in their work.
Parents and wives would come to get a remedy for a son or a
husband who would stay with friends all day, coming home
only for meals and to sleep, or who were alcoholics, or who
suddenly lost interest in their jobs. Though seen in women
too (as in the previous example, where Lata had no interest
in her husband), a large number of cases of this problem
involved men and teenage boys and girls. In case of
teenagers, this problem is usually attributed to "confusion
of the mind" (monor kheli-meli) --- a state of mind seen to
be common during that age. For older people, evil eye, bad
mantras, or bad planetary configuration are often suspected,
especially if the lack of interest was something out of
character for that person. Lack of interest often went hand
in hand with financial problems. I observed that sometimes,
the lack of interest seems to be triggered off by financial
difficulties. At other times, especially if the person who
has lost interest is the bread winner of a family, the
entire family faces acute financial distress. Sometimes,
family prestige was involved, especially in cases of
alcoholism or a teenager getting into bad company. The next
two cases show clients who approached practitioners for a
family member's lack of interest.

Juri Patgiri is a regular client of Nabin Mahanta, whom

I met at one of his sessions. She lives in a village about

203
four miles away from his house. In her words,

I first came here about two years ago because my
husband, who works at the Electricity Board_
suddenly stopped going to work. My mind was
becoming almost like mad, after all, his job is
our only source of income, and we do not have much
agricultural land. The only reason he had not been
sacked was because I had got a medical certificate
from a doctor saying that he was ill. I had heard
about him (Mahanta) before. My husband’s older
brother had become mad once. He would beat people
all the time. Once he beat his wife so much that
her head cracked in three places. They then
brought him here, and he (Mahanta) cured him. He
gave him water and medicines, after which he
stopped beating people. So when my husband stopped
going to work, I decided to come here. He
(Mahanta) said that someone had done medicines on
him. He gave me some water and sugar and told me
to make my husband eat a little sugar and drink a
little of the water everyday and to mix a little
of that water with his bath water. He gave an
amulet, which, to my surprise, my husband wore
without making any objections. He also gave a
medicine, which looked like root ginger, but
wasn’t. I fed my husband the medicine and the
water, and gave him baths with the water for ten
days. But within seven days he started going to
work! And he had not gone to work for almost a
year! Three or four days after he took the ginger
like medicine, he vomited out the bad medicine in
his stomach. I did not see what they were, but he
(her husband) said they were round, and looked
like three eggs.

The reason I have come here today is because
the thread on which my husband was wearing his
amulet snapped, and the amulet dropped to the
floor. I got scared that my husband might stop
going to work again without that amulet. So I
came to ask him (Mahanta) what to do. He said
that he will repotentize (sodhon) the amulet.

Gauri Devi had come to the Chakrabarty brothers
worrying about her son, who was a heavy drinker, had lost

all interest in the world, had no job, had incurred huge

debts, and stayed inside the house sleeping or listening to

204
the radio most of the day. She had brought matches she had
picked in the morning, and examining them, Amaresh said that
his stars were bad. The lady agreed. She said that her son
was critically hurt in an accident recently. He did not
stop bleeding for two days. She had his horoscope examined
then and the astrologer had also said that his stars were
very bad. Amaresh told her to tell her son to be very
careful, as grohor dosh (planetary problems) could turn a
person’s life upside down. He asked her to bring a silver
amulet shell, as long in length as the first joint of a
finger of her son’s right hand. He will make a groh amulet
for him, and will also insert a mantra in it for economic
success (aie unnuti). He will also chant mantras on sugar
which she will have to secretly feed him. The sugar will
make him obedient to her, so that he will listen to her when
she tells him not to drink, or to go and find a job. The

sugar will also make him interested in the world.

CONFLICTS BETWEEN FAMILY MEMBERS. Though a cohesive family

is the ideal, conflicts between family members occur in most
families. A major source of family conflict is property
disputes between brothers. This was the problem that had
brought Dubori Hazarika to the Chakrabarty brothers. She
had already picked a batch of matches to find out if her
husband would get his fair share of his father’s property

from his brothers. His father had given a piece of land to

J—

205
her husband when he was alive, but now that he was dead, his
brothers were not letting him have the legal papers to it.
Amaresh examined the matches and told her that the matches
showed that her husband will get the land back. So he
advised her to go to court if necessary, to obtain it. But
he also told her to drop amulets in honey along with
conducting legal procedures so as to bring good relations
between the brothers. The amulet, written in her husband’s
and his brothers’ names, will have to be dropped once a week
in the pot of honey the brothers have for the purpose. It
will ensure that there would be no hard feelings later on,
and will bring about change in the brothers’ hostile
attitude towards her husband.

Another source of conflict is quarrels between the
members of an extended family, usually between wives of
brothers and between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. I
observed that a lot of times, it was married daughters who
approached the practitioners seeking remedies for conflicts
in their natal families. Chanda Das is one such daughter,
who had come to the Chakrabarty brothers for help. I first
met her as she was dropping amulets into honey to bring in
good relations. In her words,

Sometimes, in some families these days, where sons

have married, the daughters-in-law do not like

their mother—in-law. They do not respect her and

do not obey her. My brothers’ wives do not give

my mother any peace. They do not even serve her

food --— I have seen that myself when I went home.

And my brothers do not say anything to them about
it either. Besides, my brother’s wives are always

206

quarreling among themselves. He (Samaresh

Chakrabarty) gave me some sugar last week chanted-

on in the names of all the members in my mother’s

house. I have given the sugar to my mother and

have told her to mix it with the sugar in the

family’s sugar box. Today I have got some more

sugar chanted on. He also told me to drop an

amulet in honey for seven weeks, one every week.

The sugar and the amulets will make them obey my

mother. Then automatically, they will have maya

(love) for her. It will also stop them from

quarreling, and bring peace to the household.

Conflicts about money or other everyday disagreements
are also brought to practitioners, as can be seen from the
next example. Farida, a Muslim woman, had come to the
Chakrabarty brothers with matches. Samaresh asked him why
she had picked up those matches. She said that there was no
peace in her house. Samaresh replied that he could see
there is no peace in her house from the matches, what he
wanted to know was why there was no peace. Farida said that
nobody listened to anybody else. Any money that came into
their hands got spent in two days, and there were constant
arguments between her, her husband, their children, and her
husband’s brother, who lived with them. Samaresh chanted on
a packet of sugar for her, and told her to secretly feed the
sugar to everybody in their tea. He warned her that the

sugar may not work if people know they are being fed

something.

SUSPICION OF BAD MANTRAS OR EVIL EYE. Sometimes people get
multiple problems at the same time, which makes them suspect

bad mantras being done to them or somebody’s evil eye

207
catching them. The following is one such example. Rojoni
was a businessman, educated, with a bachelor’s degree in
commerce. He introduced me to both Nabin Mahanta and
Jitendra Das, as he had been consulting both of them for
some time, for his problems. He also knew Gojen Barua, but
did not trust him at all. In his own words,

I had bought a piece of land and constructed a
brick kiln on it two years ago. Though I had paid
him ninety thousand rupees for the land, the
landlord wanted an additional seventy thousand.

He kept on demanding more money and I paid him
thirty thousand more. Then he gave me an
ultimatum, that I had to pay within a particular
time period, and if I did not, he would take
steps. I did not pay him within that period, and
so he burnt my kiln and the office I had
constructed in the compound. I confronted him and
told him that it was unbelievable that he could
stoop so low. That made him angrier, and he told
me that since I had accused him of arson, he will
certainly not leave me alone. After that I was
not allowed to enter the compound of my kiln and
my employees were beaten up. And it was then that
the disturbances (ashanti) in my life began. My
mother, who hardly ever gets sick, was suddenly
taken ill, and after fifteen days at the hospital,
'she died. Ours is a joint family, and my uncle
(father’s brother), also got ill and died. After
my mother’s death, my brother’s wife quarrelled
with me, and they moved to a separate house.

There was confusion all over. My financial
situation was getting very bad. I abandoned that
kiln, and bought a new one, borrowing money from
people. My mind was unhappy, I would get angry at
everyone, and I was constantly worried.

As these bad things kept happening to me one
after the other, I went to Jitendra Das and told
him what was happening in my life, and that my
mind was not at peace. I go to him whenever I
have a problem, and he always tells me what to do.
He took the boy he uses as a medium to do basoni
(divination) on nails, and went to my house. He
found that somebody had done something on my
house, and there was a bundle of bad mantra items
buried in my courtyard. I immediately knew who had
employed a bej to do bad mantras on me --— it was

208

the landlord who had promised not to leave me
alone. Jitendra Das told me not to worry about
it, as he could take it out. He poured oil and
chanted mantras on the boy’s nails again,
sprinkling water and mustard seeds on the nails.
The boy soon saw the general area where the bundle
was buried, and about ten o’clock at night, I
started digging, helped by a trusted employee. As
we dug, the thing kept on moving, trying to avoid
being found out. The boy, who was standing at
about six feet from the hole we were digging could
see where it was on his nails. He kept telling us
which way to dig and then suddenly, after we had
dug for about two feet, he told me very urgently
to grab. Jitendra Das, who all this time was
chanting mantras and sprinkling mustard seeds and
water both on the boy and on the area we were
digging, told me to do as the boy said. I did not
have any idea what to grab, as I could not see
anything. Besides,it was late at night, and we
just had the light of a flashlight to work with.

I blindly grabbed into the ground I was digging,
and clutched a mass of mud in my hand. The boy
said that I had it in my hand, and that I should
bring it out. I pulled my hand and whatever I had
in it, out of the ground and came to the lighted
courtyard of the house. Till then I had no idea
what I had pulled. When I looked at it in the
light, I saw that it was a mud-covered bundle. We
examined the bundle, and found that it was a
little cloth packet, filled with something and
carefully stitched up. Jitendra Das and the boy
were very satisfied that they had got what they
were looking for. They were the ones who opened
the bag, I did not --- I was too scared. Our
entire family stood around and watched as Jitendra
Das took out a set of human teeth, nails, hair,
yellow cloth, vermilion, and some small bones.
These items had first been put on a black cloth,
and stitched on all sides to form a packet. The
packet had then been put on a red cloth and
stitched all around again. The red packet was
then put inside another one, and stitched again.
We knew that it was deliberately prepared --- no
one would stitch garbage up so carefully (he said
this in response to my question whether it could
have been garbage that somehow got accumulated
together). Jitendra Das chanted mantras on the
contents of the packet and sprinkled water and
mustard seeds on it. He then put it on a piece of
tin, poured kerosene oil on it and set fire to it,
after sprinkling mustard seeds and chanting

209

mantras on it again. An unbelievable stench of
burning human flesh came out of the burning
packet. Jitendra Das told me to take the ashes
outside the compound and throw it out. After I
did that, he told me not to worry any more as the
thing won’t bother me again. He gave me some
chanted-on mustard seeds and told me to sprinkle
those all around the house and the compound.

Things were better for a few days after that.
But a few days later, the same man did it to me
again. He must have found out that I had taken
those things out, and so he put in another bundle.
As things started getting bad again for me, I
asked Jitendra Das to check again. He got the boy
look at his nails again, and found that there was
another bundle, this time in the pond in our
compound. I was worried, how do I get it out of
the pond? But they said that it was no problem at
all --— they could easily lift it out through
mantras. So we got together again one night --- I
prefer to do it at night, as I did not want
curious neighbors watching. Things happened just
like the previous time, except this time my
employee and myself were wading in the shallow end
of the pond. The boy suddenly threw a stick at a
spot in the bottom of the pond, and told me to
grab. This time, I grabbed immediately, and
brought out what I had caught in my hand. It was
a bundle just like the previous one. The strange
thing is that the cloth in which such packets are
packed never rot.. This packet was in water for
who knows how long. But it looked as fresh as if
it was dropped today. Anyway, we burnt the packet
in the same way as the previous one, and I threw
out the ashes. The boy then told me that he saw
another bundle in my new kiln. We went to the
kiln, and followed the same procedures. It took
us much longer to get hold of this packet, as it
kept running back and forth. Just after we got
hold of it, there was a loud noise, as if some one
had thrown a brick on the ground, and then the
sound of something flying away with a "hu-hu"
sound. We looked all around for someone, flashing
our torches all around the compound, but found
nothing. Jitendra Das told us not to worry --- it
was the shakti running away when the packet was
captured.

Things got somewhat better after that, but
the other day Jitendra Das told me that my enemy
has tried again, and there is something else put
in my compound. I now feel I need some protection.
I asked Jitendra Das if he could tie up the place

210

with mantras so that no other bad things can be
put in there in future. But Das says that he does
not have that knowledge. He can open up things
tied (baandhs) by other people, but he could not
do baandhs himself.

I then went to Nabin Mahanta. He talked on
his "telephone" and he too, like Jitendra Das,
told me that there is something still being done
to me. He even told me who was doing these things
to me, and it turned out to be the same person I
had suspected --- the landlord of my previous
kiln. But I hold no grudge against him, as that
will only lead to more feud. I just need
protection. Nabin Mahanta has said he can give me
protection, and has told me to see him in a week.
He said he will give me an amulet to wear, some
chanted-on sugar that has to be eaten by all
members of my household, and water and mustard
seeds to sprinkle around my house and my kiln, as
well around the compounds of both. I asked him
whether he will be able to get rid of the new
bundle in my compound. He said he will not go
himself, but his shaktis will go and take it out.
He also told me to bring an old silver coin,
ranging between 1901 to 1907. I found one
yesterday, dated 1902, as I looked around my
father’s things. I will take that to him when I
go t see him next week.

(iioth Jitendra Das and Nabin Mahanta are very
good en. They both lead very religious lives,
and you can make out that such men will not
deceive you, or promise to do things that they are
incapable of. Neither of them are greedy for
mOney. I usually give them fifteen or twenty
rupees every time I consult them, but I never feel
obligated to give anything. Sometimes, if special
amulets have to be made, they charge for the
materials that go into it and for the shell, and I
do not mind paying that. After all, I have seen
them take out the evil things from my house with
my 0 eyes, so I do not grudge them a little

(Other clients have also claimed to have seen evil items
unearthed "with their own eyes" (nij sokure dekha).> Jonaki
Devi, who was waiting to consult Nripen Goswami narrated an ‘
account of how Goswami had cured a mad girl in their

village. In her words,

211

There was this girl in our village, she was
educated, with an M.A degree. She suddenly got
mad. She would sing and dance in the street,
laugh loudly to herself, and even take off her
clothes. He (Goswami) was brought to her house,
and when he reached there, she was in a room,
without any clothes, singing and dancing. Her
mother and sisters were crying outside, and there
were a lot of us gathered around, trying to
comfort them. He stood just outside the door of
the house, and closed his eyes. Then he
instructed the mad girl’s brother to dig at a
particular spot in a corner of their courtyard.
Several people started digging, and found a bundle
of things --- human intestinal canals (nari), all
twisted up after being cremated, red cloth, red
feathers, roots of trees, nails and hair. As soon
as these things were brought out, the girl became
unconscious. He (Goswami) went inside the room
where she was, told her sisters to put some
clothes on her, and when she was presentable,
sprinkled water on her, chanting mantras all the
time. Soon after, the girl woke up, and looked
surprised to see so many people staring at her.
He asked her how she felt and she said she felt
feverish. He gave her a chanted-on flower and
blessed her, chanting mantras again. He sent
someone to the nearby shop to buy an amulet shell,
and prepared an amulet for her. The girl was
completely cured after that. Now she is married,
and is the mother of three children.

I had heard about bej burying bundles in
people’s courtyards to cause bad things to happen
in the family, but this was the first time I had
seen such things. It made the hair on arms stand
up! And till then, I had only heard about him
(Goswami) from others. But that day I saw his
shakti with my own eyes.

INTERE TIN MIS EL OUS CON RNS. The concerns that

bring clients to practitioners are so extensive that it is

impossible to give examples of all of them. I am therefore

ending this discussion with only three more, which I found

interesting.

Keteki told the Chakrabarty brothers that she had some

212
coconut trees in her garden, which start fruiting, but the
fruits fall off before they are ready. Samaresh chanted on
a bottle of water in Keteki’s name, and instructed her to
pour the water into a sprinkler bottle and sprinkle the tree
with it. The water had to reach as high up the tree as she
could manage. He reassured her that their chanted-on water
had brought fruits to many people’s trees, so her trees
should fruit soon too. This claim is confirmed by a lot of
clients who told me that their trees started producing
fruits after being treated with the brothers’ potentized
water.

Jayanta Nath had come to the Chakrabarty brothers
because his eight-year-old daughter, who was in hospital
with burn injuries was refusing to eat. The doctors had
told them to give her milk and other nutritious things, but
she would not touch anything they tried to feed her. He had
brought a bottle of milk with him, which he wanted Amaresh
to chant on. Amaresh chanted on the bottle and also on a
bottle of water, telling the father to give her the water
several times a day. He said that the mantra in the water
will give her the desire to eat and drink by the next day,
and would also make her get better faster.

Jayashree, another client of the Chakrabarty brothers
had brought half a kilogram of honey, to be chanted on to
reduce her weight. She said that her uncle had eaten a

bottle of honey the brothers had chanted on for his chronic

213
upset stomach. According to the brothers, the stomach
problem was being caused by his enlarged liver, and the
chanted—on honey would help reduce the enlargement. As her
uncle’s stomach problem was much better, she wanted to try a
similar remedy that the brothers had to reduce fat. Samaresh
potentized the honey in her name, and instructed her how to
eat it. After finishing her work for the day, and before
going to bed each night, she should mix two teaspoons of the
honey with a glass of water and drink it. She should then
go to sleep immediately. The honey and the water will work
inside her as she sleeps, and gradually get rid of the fat
in her body. He told her to try the dose of two spoons of
honey for a week, if she has no problems, she should
increase the dose to four spoons a day. The actual dose,
according to him was four spoons, but a lot of people get
irregular bowel movements, burning sensations inside the
stomach, or loss of appetite with high doses of honey. So
she should test her tolerance first before going in for four
spoons right away. He reassured her that honey and water

made excess body fat disappear very quickly.

CONCLUSION.
As can be seen from the interactions I have described
and the stories I have narrated in this chapter, "medical"
issues are only one aspect of the experience of suffering.

"Medical" issues are not separated from social, economic or

214
other issues, and they are interpreted along the same
categories of causation. Though different practitioners may
have different styles of operating and their techniques may
differ in some ways, the general procedures are very
similar. (The concerns that clients come with are also very
similar and many of them provide a window into particular
culturally specific stress areas that arise out of that
socio-cultural setting.

Mantras are one way to deal with problems, and, as the
narrations show, people often do not start out believing in
its effect. But having personal experience or knowledge of
some problem solved in a satisfactory way, often helps in
bringing people to the practitioners)

gOne of the reasons I put in the narrations is because
this is how discourse on doing mantras is carried on. I
found myself hearing these sorts of stories over and over
again --- in social gatherings, in everyday conversation and
in the practitioners’ sessions. Even people who had never
been to a practitioner told me such stories about other
people. I therefore see the role of stories as an important

factor in keeping the practice of mantras going as an

effective and meaningful way to deal with situations:)

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

I started this dissertation by questioning a common
assumption in medical anthropology that health and illness
can be objectified into isolable entities. Such assumptions
help in creating apriori western categories, which other
cultural actors do not often relate to. I also referred to
a growing sentiment among scholars that we need to look at
health and illness as only one aspect of misfortune,
affliction, and the experience of suffering. These scholars
see a need for medical anthropologists to address broader
issues of social theory. This dissertation is a step in
that direction.

To recapitulate what I have done so far, I have
examined a cultural practice, locally called "doing mantras"
in the Indian state of Assam. The practice is played out as
practitioner-client interactions. The interactions come
about in times of afflictions, misfortunes and dilemmas
suffered by the client, and are roughly structured into
divination, diagnosis, and remedy. Underlying the practice
is a set of assumptions about the world, and a cultural
logic that makes it a sensible way of dealing with
problematic life situations for the actors. Illness and

health form only one aspect of the interaction. For

215

216
purposes of this dissertation I address three basic
questions about the practice of mantras--- what is the
nature of the practice, what is the logic underlying the
practice, and how influential is this practice in dictating
actor’s thoughts and actions in that cultural setting. This
treatise, so far, has addressed the first two questions.

I have analyzed the practice of mantras as a cultural
schema, using Ortner’s [Ortner 1973,1990] conceptualization
of the notion. The practice of mantras, as I see it,
represents a culturally typical way of interpreting and
resolving diverse situations in a similar way --- in terms
of mantras. Cultural schemas, according to Ortner, embody
and rest upon particular assumptions about the nature of
reality and they are found to be useful, logical, and
natural ways of understanding and acting. As already
discussed in Chapter 5, the world that my informants
presented to me consists of various forces which can effect
people’s lives in different ways. Besides normal illnesses
and dangers, there are also ghosts and spirits, other’s
envious thoughts and words, as well as the power of fellow
humans to deliberately inflict problems on others.

One means by which other humans obtain power is through
mantras. As laid out in Figure 1, mantras, when said by the
right person, in the right procedure is seen to generate a
power which can be used for both good and evil purposes. It

is this cultural logic that takes the client to the

217
practitioners. I looked at some of the practitioners to see
what a "right person" is like, and what the source of his
power is. Most of the practitioners talked of rigorous
training, some form of exercise, whether spiritual or
otherwise, to maintain the knowledge, and a sense of
humility and goodness of heart.

In Chapter 2, I had made the distinction between doing
mantras and puja (worship). Mantras are the essential
component of both, and are sacred words. But in the context
of doing mantras, they are recontextualized in an almost
secular way, the word secular being used here to mean
concern with worldly affairs rather than spiritual ones.
This is evident both from the nature of the interactions as
well as from the composition of the clients, who are not
confined only to Hindus. It is also, in a sense,
decollectivized and individualized. Each client comes to
the practitioner with his or her own set of problems.
Perhaps because of this sense of being irreligious,
practices such as these, which Alper [1991 a,b1 calls
quotidian mantras, have often been glossed as "magic".
Significantly, in my discussions with informants, I did not
see a dichotomy between magic and religion. Doing mantras
were sometimes described as jadu vidya (knowledge of magic)
by both practitioners and clients, who at the same time
emphasized its religious base. This fits in with Wadley’s

[1975] ideas, who shows that there is no bounded domain of

218
religion or a spiritual universe in Hindu thinking. "Thus
any behavior towards any being which is based on the fact
that being has power is religious behavior" [Wadley
1975:1841.

The taken for granted reality of religion is for some
people extended to the domain of doing mantras. This
transition from the worship-oriented religious to the
somewhat secular, distress-oriented domain of mantras is not
very phenomenal. A common feature of any religious ritual
(puja) or temple blessing is water, seen to be made sacred
and potent with mantras and by contact with the deity. Such
potent water is ingested by as well as sprinkled over the
person. In Assam, the water that is ingested is called pod
jol (water from the deity’s feet), which would convey the
deity’s blessings into the person. The water sprinkled is
called shanti pani (peace water), which brings peace and
happiness to the devotees. After a ritual is over, a
flower (nirmali) from the ritual is given to retain the
power of the deity with the person. Usually an edible item
(prasad) is also given, eating which transfers the deity’s
power into the devotee’s body. The same concept is seen in
the context of doing mantras. The power inherent in the
mantra is activated by the power of the person chanting it,
and the combined power potentizes water, or any other item
for a specific purpose. Just as the power of the deity is

taken into the body by ingesting the potent item, similarly,

219
the power created for the specific purpose is taken into the
body through the mouth to fulfill that purpose. A very
similar concept as sprinkling water on the devotee can be
seen in the practitioner requiring the client to drink and
bathe with chanted-on water. These seem to be merely
extensions from a generalized ritual context to an
individualized problem solving context.

Similarly, other "unmarked" objects [Wadley 1975] are
used in both contexts. Temples often give threads, bangles
or other items, made potent by being in contact with the
deity which devotees wear to keep the power of the deity
with them. Boxes of vermillion powder are offered to the
deity and then brought back home for everyday wear ——— for a
long and happy married life. The same general ideas can be
seen in the practice of mantras where mantras are chanted on
strands of threads or on amulets which a person wears for a
speCific purpose. Vermillion powder is symbol of marriage
for a Hindu woman --- similar to a wedding ring in the West.
Chanted-on vermillion is given to a wife so as to make a
wayward husband come back to her. Potentizing the symbol is
seen to make the weakening marriage stronger. I have seen
the Chakrabarty brothers give chanted—on kohl to Muslim
women instead of vermillion, for the same purpose.

The concept of chanting itself is very common both in
the ritual as well as in everyday context. Many Hindu

prayers are in the form of verses, often in Sanskrit, which

220
are chanted either by the priest, or by the person. Though
the words are not meaningless, the emphasis for the chanter
is on the chanting, and not in the meaning of the words ---
most people in fact do not even know what the words mean.
The general idea is that as long as the words are chanted
correctly, the deity’s blessings will come to them. In the
context of doing mantras, this concept is intensified to the
extent that the meaning of the words, in many cases become
totally unimportant. As most practitioners told me, the
power of the words was in the particular configuration of
syllables and not in their meaning. The point I am trying
to make here is that there is a lack of a rigid
compartmentalization between a spiritual and a quasi-
spiritual domain of mantras. But at the same time, I want
to make it clear that my informants do make some sort of a
conceptual distinction between the two domains, even though
the distinction is not hard and fast.

I could also see that not everyone in that cultural
setting resorted to mantras. Some strongly disbelieved in
it. Others were ambivalent about it. But almost everyone
knew about the existence of the practice. Many clients have
told me that they had heard of people who were able to do
things using mantras, but they had no idea of what exactly
went on until they saw someone’s crisis resolved or until
problematic situations forced them to seek the help of

mantras as an alternative resort. As Ortner suggests

221

actors have enough cultural shapings so that much

of their cultural repertoire will seem reasonable,

but not always necessarily deeply meaningful and

compelling. Under circumstances, however, actors

may connect with a particular cultural schema,

which may then assume intense meaningfulness.

They will take it, or equally, it will take them.

The schema may then acquire potential structuring

force: The actor will actually use it to order his

or her interpretations and actions. Even under

these conditions, it will not necessarily take on

structuring force; whether it does or not depends

on a multitude of real world factors - - -

[Ortner1990:921.

From Ortner’s words it is apparent that an actor has
the choice to accept or to reject a cultural schema.
Besides, different actors incorporate the same schema in
different ways. As members of a culture, actors embody
different kinds of cultural schemas inside themselves. The
particular way the agent embodies these structures or
schemas determine his or her actions to a large extent. How
a structure or schema is embodied differs from person to
person, depending on socialization, family ideology, life
circumstances, personality, and so on. Thus each agent
works on the existing structures and changes them somewhat,
based on his or her life experiences. This also makes the
logic underlying these schemas very contextual --- in
certain contexts and situations they may make sense, at
other times they may not. As Ortner says, actors find the
schema personally meaningful in a given context and utilize

them as a vehicle for personal agency. At other contexts,

they can reestablish distance and render the schema once

222

again a relatively abstract part of their symbolic ecology
[Ortner 1990:90].

As I watched the clients come in to the practitioners,
I noticed many children, either just accompanying their
mothers or brought by mothers for some specific purpose,
including getting them chanted-on so as to be obedient.
Children were sometimes made to miss school to come to a
session. One area where children themselves came to the
Chakrabarty brothers was around the time of exams, to get
their pens and ink potentized. Getting high scores in exams
was an arena most children relate to on an everyday basis --
- their reputation among their peers in school often depend
on this. Many mothers have proudly told me how their
children’s scores have improved after resorting to mantras.
For those children, studies was one context where resorting
mantras made sense. As Bourdieu states, dispositions
inculcated in the earliest years of life are constantly
reinforced by calls to order from the group, which consists
of individuals having the same dispositions and interests
[Bourdieu 1977:151 Therefore, chances exist that later on
in life too, these children will continue going to
practitioners in times of distress. I have talked to many
mothers who have been coming to these practitioners since
they were themselves children.

Cultural stories also play a very important role in

making a schema seem sensible. As I have already stated,’

223
most of the discourse on doing mantras is conducted in the
form of stories. This is particularly relevant in the case
of Mayong, where all that survives of mantras seem to be
stories. Very few people have real experience of any bejali
from Mayong. But the reputation of bej from Mayong is
carried on through these stories. I see these stories
playing an important part in keeping the practice going.
Most of the time they remain just as stories -—- but at the
same time, they reinforce assumptions about the world ---
evil eye, ghosts and spirits, power of mantras, and so on.
Then at particular moments of crisis, they may fit into the
person’s life experiences and become a model of reality
[Geertz 1973:93]. In the context of Mayong, these stories
have also, to a certain extent, shaped the meaning of the
practice of bejali --- the word bej now often has a bad
connotation.

But these stories, like any other cultural material,
are embodied by different people in different ways. Actors
do not passively take in these myths, legends or stories
during placid times and then regurgitate them as sensible
ways of looking at reality in times of crisis. Resorting to
mantras during times of trouble is not therefore as
unconscious a decision as Bourdieu [1977, 1990] suggests.
These schemas are not being mindlessly reproduced [Comaroff
1985] by sheer ‘habit’ [Bourdieu 1977, Berger and Luckman

1967]. Actors take in these various cultural material, from

224
multiple realities, and, in times of crisis make a conscious
choice, based on their own experiences. It is because of
this potential for choice that Ortner sees a loose
connection between cultural schemas and the actor. And it
is this potential that prevents the schema of the practice
of mantras from having a programming effect on actors. And
for me personally, this suggestion helps in understanding
why in spite of growing up in the same cultural setting,
different people relate to the practice of mantras in
different ways.

This brings me to one last point —-- the role of the
actor in shaping schemas. Ortner suggests that actors have
the capacity to shape and potentially change the schema. In
the practice of mantras, clients, by seeking the help of
these practitioners, are reproducing the practice. One of
the reasons people continue going to these practitioners is
because of the kind of problems they deal with ———
conflicts, illnesses, dilemmas. The same kind of problems
crop up through generations. It is conceivable that as long
as these problems exist, and as long as people see them
being solved through mantras, clients will continue to seek
the help of these practitioners.

On the other hand, I continuously heard people lament
about the lack of real bej these days --- practitioners are
accused of having become mercenary. It is greed that is

seen to have brought the downfall of Mayong. Practitioners,

225
in turn, talked of the lack of enthusiasm among the younger
generation to learn the knowledge. I was told that a lot of

this knowledge has been lost because practitioners have died

without teaching their skills to others. Younger
generations are fast becoming "scientific", and do not often
relate to such "superstition". It is therefore possible

that the practice may eventually cease to be meaningful and

thus disappear.

LI ST OF REFERENCES

LIST OF REFERENCES

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1991 a. Introduction. in, Harvey P. Alper, ed.
Understanding Mantras. Delhi: Motilal
Banarasidass.

1992 b. A Working Bibliography for the Study of Mantras.
in, Harvey P. Alper ed. Understanding Mantras.
Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass.

Babb, Lawrence A
1975 The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central
India. New York : Columbia University Press.

Banerji, S.C
1978 Tantra in Bengal: A Study in its Origin,
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Basu, Nirmal K
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Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckman

1967 The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in
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Bharati, Agehananda

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Bourdieu, Pierre

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Cantlie, Audrey

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Carstairs, G.M and R.L Kapur

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Coburn, Thomas B

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Comaroff, Jean

1980 Healing and the Cultural Order: the Case of the
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