Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/58

 The Religion of the Veda "House-books" togetherlay bare with unrivalled preci- sion of detail the religion of the obscure and the hum- ble. For many a Hindu, through many centuries, these fond time-honored customs of the fathers, the schöne sitte, was the true religion, which turned inward, irradiating and sustaining the spirit of a pens ple whose masses live the life of dark toil and do not see the light revealed to their own elect. To the development of the higher and ultimate religion of the Veda these homely practices and superstitions contribute very little. 42 Charm against Jaundice. 1. Up to the sun shall go thy heart-ache and thy jaundice: in the colour of the red bull do we envelop thee! 2. We envelop thee in red tints, unto long life. May this person go unscathed, and be free of yellow colour! 3. The cows whose divinity is Rohini, they who, more- over, are themselves red [rohinis]-in their every form and every strength we do envelop thee. 4. Into the parrots, into the ropanākās (thrush) do we put thy jaur dice; into the haridravas (yellow wagtail) do we put thy yellowness. (Atharva-Veda, i. 22.) ¹ ¹ See the author, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii.) p. 7. For the very interesting symbolic practices that accompany the recital of this charm against jaundice, see p. 263 ff of the same work.