MAGIC, CHARMSPrayers are predicated on the belief that the gods are like human potentates
who have the means to grant boons and may do so if asked nicely, or may
decline to. Man proposes, God disposes. It is acknowledged that the outcome
depends on the deity’s will: RV 8. 28. 4 yátha ̄ vásanti deva ̄ ́s, táthéd asat, ‘as the
gods wish, so will it be’, cf. 8. 20. 17, 61. 4; in almost identical phrasing, Y. 29. 4
aθa ̄ nə ̄ aŋhat
̃
, yaθa ̄ hvo ̄ vasat
̃, ‘so it will be for us as he (Mazda) wishes’;Od.- 444 f. ‘the god will grant one thing and ignore another, whatever his heart
wishes’.^38
The basic difference between a prayer and a spell, between religion and
magic, is that the latter does not depend on persuasion. The incantation or
ritual, if correctly uttered or performed, automatically produces the desired
result. If supernatural powers are involved in bringing it about, they are not
persuaded but compelled. If the magic is unsuccessful, some mistake must
have been made in the words used or the actions executed. In hymns and
prayers it is the content that counts, not the wording; as we have seen, new
hymns were constantly being composed (until the point when the Veda
became a sacrosanct text, to be memorized verbatim), and new prayers were
made to suit circumstances. Spells and incantations, on the other hand, were
esoteric knowledge, supposed to be fixed and unchanging.
Magic is no doubt a very ancient human craft, and a priori one might
expect that the Indo-Europeans had practitioners of it. The expectation is
confirmed by material to be considered in the remainder of this chapter. The
practitioners would seem to have used spells and other magical techniques
both for beneficent purposes such as healing or banishing evil things and for
causing harm to enemies.
A survey of Indo-European magical arts might be very rewarding, but it lies
beyond the scope of the present work. It would require a book to itself and
more extensive research than anyone has yet conducted into the subject. All
that is offered here is a review of some noteworthy points and comparisons
concerning the verbal aspects.
Incantations: style and deliveryOur word ‘incantation’ suggests something sung or chanted, and in several
Indo-European traditions similar vocabulary is used for spells as for songs. In
(^38) On this motif cf. West (1997), 267.
326 8. Hymns and Spells