[INDOLOGY] witchcraft info

[Jonathan Silk]

I  well be  wrong (it happens alarmingly often) but my sense is that the
Pāli term generally (always?) refers to fortune telling and the like,
although I could see that this might in some ways bleed into "witchcraft"
for some. But in India there are certainly ideas about beings who
manipulate reality in other ways ("sorcerers") and I do not think that this
is to be connnected with tiracchānavijjā.
Jonathan

On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 2:56 PM Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Although not expressly involving persecution, the condemnation of "base
> arts" (tiracchānavijjā) as "wrong livelihood" (micchājīva) in the Pali
> Digha Nikaya (1.21-28 in Walshe's translation) may be worth considering.
> Many of the "arts" explicitly mentioned are frequently associated with
> "witchcraft." There are no doubt injunctions in the various Vinaya-s as
> well.
>
> Matthew Kapstein
> Directeur d'études, émérite
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
>
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
> The University of Chicago
>
> https://brill.com/view/title/60949
>
> https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of DIEGO
> LOUKOTA SANCLEMENTE <diegoloukota at ucla.edu>
> *Sent:* Friday, February 4, 2022 7:26 AM
> *To:* Paolo Eugenio Rosati <paoloe.rosati at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Subject:* Re: [INDOLOGY] witchcraft info
>
>
>   Dear Paolo,
>
>   Albeit short and less descriptive than we would wish, the three 3rd-4th
> Century Gāndhārī documents from Niya that mention the persecution and
> summary execution of witches, numbers 58, 63, and 248, are the one instance
> I can think of (you will find the texts in Boyer, A.M., E. J. Rapson, E.
> Senart, and P. S. Noble, 1920–29, *Kharoṣṭhī Inscriptions Discovered by
> Sir Aurel Stein in Chinese Turkestan* (Oxford: Clarendon Press), and
> Thomas Burrow's English translation in his 1940 *A Translation of the
> Kharoṣṭhi Documents from Chinese Turkestan* (James G. Forlong Fund.
> London: The Royal Asiatic Society), available online at
> https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/niyadocts.html).
>   The tricky part here is to what extent one can consider Central Asian
> Shanshan/Nuava to be Indic/South Asian. My own take here—but there is a
> variety of opinion—is that it was a settler-colonial society in which
> Gandhāran culture informed the discourse of a *mestizo* elite, à la Latin
> America.
>   The term *khakhorda* or *khakhorna* used for "witch" is particularly
> fascinating with its presumed Iranian etymology (~Avestan *ka-xvarəδa*).
> Given that the indigenous people of the kingdom were probably Iranian
> speakers, it is likely that the "witchcraft" reflected indigenous
> practices. I look forward to seeing if other people have more references.
>
>   *namaskaromi*,
>
>   Diego
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 12:42 AM Paolo Eugenio Rosati via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Dear Indologists,
>
> I am wondering if any pre-colonial written source on witchcraft/magic
> persecution in South Asia exists.
>
> Sincerely,
> Paolo
>
> --
> *Paolo E. Rosati*
>
> * PhD in Asian and African Studies *
> *https://uniroma1.academia.edu/paolo
> <https://uniroma1.academia.edu/PaoloRosati/>**er**osati/
> <https://uniroma1.academia.edu/PaoloRosati/>*
> paoloe.rosati at gmail.com
> Mobile/Whatsapp: (+39) 338 73 83 472
> Skype: paoloe.rosati
>
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-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

website: www.OpenPhilology.eu
copies of my publications may be found at
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk
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