Strīkarmāni: Vedic Women's Magic.
The Strīkarmāni (स्त्रीकर्माणि) are a series of spells from the Atharvaveda, a collection of short hymns or stanzas that are intended to solve everyday problems of a very varied nature, which due to their structure and purpose have been called "Vedic spells". Today we will focus on the so-called "women's" spells, which help us to analyze the figure of women in traditional Hindu magic, and at the same time, to see the general model of the popular spell in India.
Although these types of poems-incantations have always been called women's rites, this is a questionable meaning, since, although here we find spells for love, marriage and pregnancy, we also find spells for ending rival women, jealousy, anger and other domestic issues, and even poems that actually have men as protagonists, such as the search for a wife or cures for the virile member.
These incantations are very similar to those found throughout the Indo-European sphere, with a notable aspect of homeopathic magic (like affects like). They share much with other models of spells from the Atharvaveda, which can be seen in future articles, both in the repetition of formulas, as in the mention of gods and their qualities, as well as in their facets of destruction of evil.
The organization of the texts is not real in the Atharvaveda, where they are mixed, but was done a posteriori by the scholars. After identifying the "spells for women", small groups were created by theme to facilitate the study. We will try to follow the divisions of Moncó (1999), and Sevilla Rodríguez (2002).
Love spells
In spell VI 130, a woman requests that a man die of love for her, but that she not fall in love. Perhaps in revenge, perhaps hoping to get something from him. In any case, it is indicated that beans be scattered and arrowheads be burned. Also, during the ritual a clay figurine must be destroyed that symbolizes the melting of love of the man towards the woman who recites the spell:
<<(...) As he loves me / may I never love him. / Gods, push this love / and let him burn for me. / Maruts, drive him mad, / Antárishka (environment), drive him mad / Agni, drive him mad / let him burn for me >>
However, in the following spell, the ritual praxis is the same, and only the text changes, because the woman is in love with the man she desires:
AV VI, 131
<<From head to toe / May this longing for me invade you. / Gods, drive this love / and let it burn for me. / Ánumati, consent to it, / Ákuti (desire), obtain it / Gods, encourage this love / and let it burn for me (...) Be the father of our children.>>
In Spell II 30, a man must wave a lemon balm herb (?) while reciting the spell, so that a woman will be subdued and fall in love with him:
<< Like the honey plant (unknown, commonly translated as lemon balm) / that stirs the wind / so I stir your thoughts / so that you may be my lover / and not leave my side (...) What is inside, be outside / What is outside, be inside / In many ways, take possession, herb, / of the thoughts of girls (...) >>
In some of these spells, honey is also used, because it is sticky and sweet, and symbolic arrows are made to be stuck in the heart and mind of the desired girl.
Love potions
In some of these spells we have mentioned the ingredients to create love potions. Performed mostly by the female gender, it also serves to check the associations of the ingredients by their flavor, spiciness, color, or magical property.
AV VI, 102
<< The mixture of madhuga (honey plant, lemon balm?), / kushtha (costus or cane) and nádala (nard) ointment, / I take it decisively from the hands of Bhaga / the one who obtains affection>>
AV VI, 139
<< Little plant (unknown, chestnut?) that has grown / for my happiness / a hundred are your shoots / thirty-three have spread / With a thousand leaves I make / your heart burn (...) You who are propitious / you who make burn, / chestnut, beautiful, unite us / unite us both / in a single heart>>
AV V, I
<< This plant born of honey (again the madhuga or possibly liquorice) / with honey we pluck / You are a shoot of honey, / cover us with honey. /Honey on the tip of the tongue / Sweetness of honey / at the root of the tongue / that you are under my will (...) With this sugar cane that surrounds you / I have come, so that we are not enemies / but lovers / so that you do not separate from me >>
Spells for marriage
The spells intended to propitiate and contract a good marriage are not very different from these, except that in them offerings and libations are made to the gods. The one we have just read with liquorice was probably a recitation that took place even in the ceremony itself, since it is known that in arranged marriages, the groom could wear a liquorice amulet tied with red thread, which would provoke desire in his fiancée.
Other authors (Moncó, 1999) consider that some of the spells were related to svayamvara marriages, that is, those in which it was the women who chose their husbands, and not only in the standardized ceremonies of searching for a husband (pativédana).
In this example, spell VI 60, it was prayed at dawn while making an offering of ghrtá, melted butter, to the god of marriage Aryaman, and leaving food scraps for the crows, who hover before the sun rises:
<<Aryamán comes ahead / with loose hair / looking for a husband for this single woman / and a wife for him who has no wife.
Aryamán, this woman (the one who asks) has grown tired / of going to the celebrations of the others. / Now, Aryamán, the others will go to their celebration.
The Creator has kept the earth / The Creator, the sun and the sky. / May the Creator create for this single woman a husband / who is according to her wish >>
Spells for fertility and birth
Of course, other female rituals were clearly oriented towards good birth and fertility in general, as procreators and responsible for the survival of the people and the lineage.
AV I, 11
<< (...) Four are the directions of the sky / and four are the directions of the earth / The gods have created an embryo, / let them uncover it for birth (...) >>
It is curious to see that with regard to fertility, there are spells intended to cure both female and male sterility.
AV III, 23
<< That which makes you sterile / we make it disappear / Now it is far from you, / apart from you we leave it. >>
AV VI, 72
<<Just as the black serpent extends at will / making beautiful shapes by the magic of a demon / so this plant (arká, silk cotton) composes / your penis part by part (...) Like the member of an onager / of an elephant, of a donkey, / like that of a powerful horse / so your penis grows>>
In those spells intended for men, they had to sit on a stake or a thick and long stick, which symbolized the penis, and have in their hands other elements, such as the aforementioned arká or a bow, to tense its string in a simile with the growth of the penis.
Curses against fertility
We also find curses aimed at male impotence. In these cases, the object that symbolizes the penis is mistreated, crushed and/or destroyed, these spells being extremely explicit, as is usually the case with all curses. In Spell VI, 138, the instructions are to put the tail of a calf in a leather bag with reeds, excrement and urine. The bag was crushed viciously and buried. Lack of virility is associated with effeminacy. The plant used, unfortunately, is unknown to us.
<< You, the best of plants / are summoned, grass. / Make me today this man / impotent, effeminate.
Make him impotent, effeminate / make him comb his hair like a woman; / then, let Indra crush your balls / with two pressing stones.
Impotent, I have left you impotent. / Castrated, I have left you castrated. / Without seed, I have left you without seed. / Female hairstyles / we put on your head.
Your two tubes made by the gods / where your virility is / I cut them with a wedge / on the rat (vulgar way of indicating the vulva) of someone.
Just as women cut cane / with a stone for the mat / so I cut your member on the rat of someone. >>
Spells against jealousy
To finish this section, a brief review of spells intended to extinguish jealousy and envy (in which a fire lit on the envied person was literally extinguished), or to restore marital harmony (by hitting and spitting on a stone to keep all the bad things). Here is the clearest example:
AV. VII, XLV
<<Brought from distant Sindhu, a mixed people of all races / brought from afar, you are considered a jealousy-healing balm.
As one who extinguishes fire with water, so does jealousy. Like the heat of a burning fire, or a flame that roars in wood.>>
Pietro V. Carracedo Ahumada – pietrocarracedo@gmail.com
Bibliography:
- Moncó, S. Mujeres en los Vedas. Ediciones AKAL, 1999
-Sevilla Rodríguez, M. El Atharvaveda. Universidad de Oviedo, 2002.
- VV.AA., editado por Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa Núñez y Sofía Torallas Tovar). Edición de textos mágicos de la antigüedad y de la Edad Media, CSIC, Madrid, 2010.
-VV.AA. Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, translated by Maurice Bloomfield. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 42. [1897]
Related articles:
>Mayong: the land of sorcery in India
> Hindu astrology or Jyotish. Notions of astrology (II)
