Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/198

180 representing a downward stage in the progress of the Toda religion. There is some reason to think (it is little more than surmise) that we have in the Todas an example of a people who have had a higher degree of civilisation than they now possess. It may be that some of the higher features of the Toda religion have disappeared; that with the great development of the ritual aspect, some of the higher aspects have suffered and that one of the features which has atrophied is prayer. As we have seen, it is in favour of this view that the part of the dairy formula which most closely resembles prayer is tending to disappear.

If the nature of the magical incantation of the Todas be held to afford indirect evidence that the dairy formula involves the idea of appeal to higher powers, there still remains the question whether this appeal is a supplication or a demand. In the case of the magical incantation, I have no information as to the mental attitude of the Toda sorcerer. I do not know whether he is asking the four gods to injure his enemy, or whether he imagines he can compel the gods to do what he wishes by merely using the formula. In the case of the dairy formula, I have also no clear information as to whether the dairyman is asking or compelling, but the way in which the people spoke of these formulæ gave me the general impression that they were asking benefits from the gods. There is no doubt that the Todas regard the gods as beings who have power to inflict punishment in the case of any infringement of the laws regulating the procedure of the dairy, and there can be little doubt that they believe the gods to be equally capable of conferring benefits and averting evil.

In addition to prayer and magical incantation, a third kind of formula probably exists. There is little doubt that people sometimes use forms of words which are regarded as having virtue in themselves without any idea of appeal to higher powers. The Indian mantra seems often to be a formula of this kind. The question arises whether the