Page:Omens and superstitions of southern India.djvu/207

Rh notes made on the occasion of an interview with the European.

Reference has been made (p. 180) to mantrams carved on stone pillars. The story of a stone slab at Rāyalcheruvu in the Anantapur district, known as the yantram rāyi or magic stone, is narrated by Mr Francis.

"The charm consists of eighty-one squares, nine each way, within a border of tridents. Each square contains one or more Telugu letters, but these will not combine into any intelligible words. At the bottom of the stone are cut a lingam and two pairs of foot-prints. Some twelve years ago, it is said, the village suffered severely from cholera for three years in succession, and a Telugu mason, a foreigner who was in the village at the time, cut this charm on the stone to stop the disease. It was set up with much ceremony. The mason went round the village at night without a stitch of clothing on him, and with the entrails of a sheep hanging round his neck. Many cocoanuts were offered to the stone, and many sheep slain before it. The mason tossed a lamb in the air, caught it as it fell, tore its throat open with his teeth, and then bounded forward, and spat out the blood. More sheep and cocoanuts were offered, and then the slab was set up. The mason naturally demanded a substantial return for the benefit he had conferred on the inhabitants. When cholera now breaks out, the villagers subscribe together, and do pūja (worship) to the stone in accordance with directions left by him."

Of similar stones in the South Arcot district, Mr Francis writes as follows :—

"In several villages in the west of the district are magical slabs, which are supposed to cure cholera and cattle disease. On them, surrounded by a border of trisulas