[INDOLOGY] Eating flesh of a jogi, a magician, a healer

[Nagaraj Paturi]

I don't think that Prof. Karp was asking if there was a scriptural
sanction.

He was just enquiring about the availability of the motif.

Such motifs when available in folk tales and fairy tales are not considered
to be reflecting the cultural reality of the tradition bearers. In Jung's
classification (1. Psychological and 2. Visionary) , these narratives form
part of visionary which means they contain dreamlike elements which have
complex mechanisms of 'symbolism', related to unconscious aspects such as
guilts, fears etc.

That said, there are certain fairy tales particularly those involving
sorcery, witchcraft and the like, where such motifs involving horror and
morbidity, containing formulae of sacrificing or consuming organisms for
acquiring the powers of the sacrificed or consumed organism do occur in
India and many other parts of the world. Bhetala pancha vimsati etc, have
such motifs. A trickster teacher conspiring to sacrifice the disciple being
sacrificed by the disciple who realizes the conspiracy of the trickster
teacher is found in Vikramarkacharitra.



On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 2:00 PM, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It has no scriptural sanction. See the AitareyaBrahmana story of Sunahsepa
> on human sacrifice that is strictly forbidden.
> The population was heterogeneous; so was the culture; unapproved practices
> took place. One may look onto the Brhatkathamanjari/ Kathasaritsagara.
> Best
> DB
>
> On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 8:35 PM, Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl> wrote:
>
>> In "Śahr Safidon ki kahani" (published by Richard Temple, The Legends of
>> the Panjab , Vol. I (No XVI,
>> ​
>> Princess Niwal Daî, As su
>> ​n
>> g
>> ​b
>> y t
>> ​wo
>>  s
>> ​c
>> a
>> ​v
>> e
>> ​n
>> gers
>> ​f​
>> ro
>> m
>> Bi
>> ​b
>> iyâl
>> ​V
>> illage
>> ​n
>> ear A
>> ​mb
>> âlâ),
>> ​
>> Bombay 1884 [Reprints: 1962, 1977] -
>>
>> his disciples eat flesh of their Guru, Dhanthar Baid - in order to gain
>> his powers  Is this motif found somewhere else in Indian narratives?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Artur Karp
>>
>> Warsaw
>> Poland
>>
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-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )


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