Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/71

 conchshell as Durga and worshipping the same with Chandan, flowers &c., and covering the same with fish mudra repeat eight times the Mulamantra.

Repent the Mulamantra several times and offer handsful of flowers anointed with chandan. Then with the water from the arghy-pot finish the Japa and repeat, Om you are the repository of our secrets, inmost secrets, receive the Japa performed by me, oh! Devi, may you bless me with prosperity and success! Then offer water on the right hand of the Devi.

Then on the four sides of the Ghata fix four arrows with the mantras, Om from Kandas (arrow) Om from Kandas (arrow) grow bardness upon bardness, may he [who dares trespass within sacred precincts] be pierced as if with a thousand blades of Durva, which grow one over the other. Encircle the same with three threads with the following mantra, Om with the thread the heavens and the earth are encircled, by me similarly this place is encircled, may the serpents protect this place from all impurities &c. Again with mustard repeat the following: Om Vetalas &c. Om the obtruders, the obstructives, the heretics, the nagas, the enemies of sacrifices, the blood-thirsty, may they be destroyed by these mustards, which shall pierce them as if with a thunderbolt.