Occult treatments (1)

A substantial part of treatment of mental and physical disorders is through non medicine routes. Removal of the effects of evil eye, wearing of lockets and of  amulets are some processes. Many diseases like sandulu (a condition of infants), koravaai noppi (a back pain), vipartha ( a condition of the joints) and eduru gurthu (a swelling of the neck) are addressed through such processes.

Where does the occult end and where do superstitions begin …. Who is wise enough to assess ?

... Sukanya, at five years, started losing power of speech. She would have episodes of about fifteen minutes duration when her tongue would protrude out slightly, her throat would feel rough and she would be unable to speak. This started happening two to three times a day. Her mother took her to the local allopathic doctors, but her condition did not improve. Then her mother got her to her parents’ home in Palaguttapalle, and she was taken to a vaidudu in Gantavaripalle. Mantrams were recited. She was also told to follow some restrictions. The episodes stopped after that. On the fifth day again she had one episode. That was the day she was to go the vaidudu again to get an antram tied. That day the vaidudu did some rituals, pricked the toe of the sacrificial hen, applied the blood on the antram and tied the antram on her. From that day her episodes ceased. She was asked to avoid meat for a year. She was to give up pork for life. Then, on her grandfather’s request, the vaidudu permitted her one egg every three months. 

Her grandparents gave the vaidudu five hundred rupees for this treatment. That was a large sum around the year 1995. But as it was a serious condition that had got addressed, they offered the sum voluntarily...

...

In all my years in the village, I tuned in completely to their health practices, and used whatever they advised as eye drops into the eye, and as internally. In this I was strengthened by our ayurvedic doctor, who also had deepest faith in local wisdom, and would ask me to refer to their practices.

But I could never mentally tune into their practices of mantrams and amulets and other esoteric practices. My modern education had irrevocably distanced me from these practices.

Over years an initial resistance came down, even if that deep faith did not get established. When Sankaranna wanted to remove dishti for my daughter to address a continuing illness, I took her to his home. He faced all four directions and with total stillness prayed to the directions and then waved the hand with the Calatropis twig before the child. That deepest concentration and the blessing and prayer for well being was palpable. I can never know what powers that harnesses. And later when they insisted that I take my daughter to Madavaripalle to Thathappa fof mantrams, I did. The utter silence and concentration that he had as he faced the camphor flame that he lit in the temple premises and the words that he uttered for the child's welfare, was deeply stilling.

The deepest faith with which they pray and tune into the sun, and the directions and the tree, and the mantrams they then utter for the cure and well being, I will never reject in the manner of a modernist, even if I can never understand or beleive completely.

An entire community deeply believes and practices these, and I cannot consider that I am far wiser than the entire collective wisdom of an ancient civilisation. That arrogance, at least, is not mine.

...

Thathappa of Maddavaripalle.

Praying to the gods.

Before handing over the antram to be tied, which will ward off the evil influences.

These processes are as central to healing, as are herbs. In my village.

When he prays there is the sense of deep silence, and connecting to deeper processes.