headless magicians - act of truth

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Headless Magicians; And an Act of Truth

Author(s): Ananda K. CoomaraswamySource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1944), pp. 215-217Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/594683.

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HEADLESS MAGICIANS; AND AN ACT OF TRUTHANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY

AV 4.18. lc krnomi satyam fdMye, 'I makeTruth for aid,' is a hitherto unrecognized case ofthe 'Act of Truth': the sacrificerenunciates therather enigmatic formula of ab, intending by thisappeal to Truth to make his further procedureeffective. As stated by Burlingame,' 'An Act ofTruth is a formal declarationof fact, accompaniedby a command or resolution or prayer that thepurpose of the agent shall be accomplished . . .Truth, in and by itself [is] all-powerful and irre-sistible . . . The Act of Truth is always a formalact.' In our text the agent's resolution or prayeris expressed by the word 'for aid.' Before goingfurther, it may be remarkedthat one who performsan Act of Truth is precisely a 'soothsayer' andConjurer' in the full and more or less 'magical'senses of the words; and that an Act of Truth isfundamentally the same thing as an Act of Faith,an equation that throws considerable light uponthe notion of the Power of Faith that "movesmountains." This does not mean that merely tobelieve what may not be true in fact confers a realpower on the agent, but that in the Comprehensor(evaihvit) Faith and Truth are essentially one andthe same thing: to realise the force of RV 8. 75. 2srad vistvavarydtIcrdhi, warrant our every wish,'addressed to Agni as the 'most knowledgable(vidvlstarah) of the Gods,one should bear in mindthat the Naighantu 3. 10 makes irat, '"Faith'

homologous with satyamn, Truth. So then s.ratwith dha can hardly be distinguished from satyamwith lcr. One may say, indeed, that this is the realmeaning of 'Faith' in any theology; for example,'the nature of faith consists in knowledge alone'and 'depends on the thing known being in theknower.'2 An Act of Truth is also an Act ofFaith, for we cannot say that we do not believewhat we recognize to be true. One can disbelieveonly in what is recognizedto be false or in a truththat has not been understood and therefore seemsto be untrue.Apart from a reference to CUI.6.16, where theman who undergoes an ordeal remains unhurtinasmuch as he 'makes himself the Truth'(atminarh satyarh karoti), Burlingame cites onlyBuddhist sources for the Act of Truth; his'Hindu' meaning only 'Indian.' It may .be truethat satyalcriya,the Skr. equivalent of Pali sacca-lciriyd,3literally 'verification,' cannot be cited;but this need not and, as we have already seen,does not mean that the act and its power had beenpreviously unknown. It is a commonplace of theBrakmanas that the Devas are often victoriousover the Asuras precisely in that they adhere tosatyam, while the Asuras follow anrtam. An in-separable connection of ideas associates truthspoken with the correspondingoperation; thus theRbhus 'speak the Truth, and act accordingly'(RV 4. 33. 6, satyom itcur nura eva hi cakrz'h),and Soma is 'one who speaks Truth and does it,'or, better, 'verifies his spokenwordI (RV 9. 113. 4,satya47'vadant satyakarman),4 and it is the con-tinuation of this tradition in Buddhism when itis said of the Buddha, who is preeminently a'truth-speaker' or 'sooth-sayer' (M 1. 395) andhimself performs Acts of Truth (Burlingame, p.432), that 'as he says, even so he does ' (A 2. 23yathe aadi . . tathe keni),-a matter, I think,of more than just ' keeping his word.' The powerof Truth on the highest levels of reference isdemonstrated in JUB I. 5 wherethe guardian deity

I ' The Act of Truth (saccakiriyei): a Hindu spell andits employment as a psychic motif in Hindu fiction,'JRAS 1917, 429-67: cf. W. Norman Brown, Walking onvthe Water, 6-13 (1928).An interesting example of the Act of Truth can becited from the tale of Cormac's Adventures; there is apig in the Land of Promise that can be killed and eatenafresh every day, but it can never be cooked " unless atruth be told for each quarter of it"; and likewise agolden cup that falls into three parts if three untruthsare spoken under it, and will unite again as it was beforeif three truths are spoken under it (see in T. P. Crossand C. H. Slover, Ancient Irish tales, 505-7 [1936]).Another occurs in the Georgian story of Asphurtzela,whose brothers had bound him to a tree and left him todie; he prayed, "0 God, if I have deceived my brothers,may this tree become stronger, but if they have deceivedme, may I pull it up by the roots." When he had saidthis he tried again, and the tree came up by the roots '(Marjory Wardrop, Georgian Folk Tales, Grimm LibraryNo. 1, 76 [18941).

2 St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol. II-II. 2 6. 1 ad 2and 47. 13 ad 2.' Not found in the Nikayas.4 Soma is here, more fully 'a speaker of Order, Truthand Faith' (Trtd*, satydmh and graddhd4i vddan).215

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216 COOMARASWAMY: Headless Magicians; and an Act of Truthof the Sundoor is himself the Truth, and 'cannotrepel ' the incomer who by his soothsaying (satyarhmdheti) is one who 'verily invokes the Truth'(satyam upaiva hvayate); and so the postulant'is altogether liberated by the Truth of what hesays' (vacas satyenatimucyate, ib. 3. 19. 1, cf.BU. 3. 1. 3-6). Similarly in Ii Up 15 where thedeceased demands admittance 'for this one whoseprinciple is Truth' (satya-dharman). The con-nection of Truth with liberation is important; forsince it is almost always the case that an Act ofTruth is performed precisely to deliver oneself oranother from some more or less dangerous pre-dicament or impasse, it may be suggested thatevery such act is, in reality, an application toparticularcircumstancesof the universal principle,'the Truth shall make you free' (John 8. 32).In AV 4. 18 the particular purpose of the Actof Truth is to give irresistible effect to an invoca-tion and operation; the invocation is addressedtounnamed Gods (primarily, no doubt, Agni, Indraand Soma, cf. 5. 31. 2, and RV 10. 87) and is forprotection against sorcerers(yatudhanan). In v. 4the deity is called upon to fell 'the crestless andheadless' (vi'sikhanvigrivdn). Tigriva is literally'neckless,' and Whitney renders thus; but, by thesame token that 'lHayagriva' is not 'horse-necked'but 'horse-headed,' the meaning is 'headless';the AV Commentary has, accordingly, chinna-siras, and Przyluski (in JA Jan-March 1927,117-8, note 5) says rightly 'decapite.' Whitneyimplies that he who is to lay low the wizards is todo so by cutting off their crests and heads; andthis would be the obvious meaning if we hadnothing but this text to rely upon. In fact, how-ever, the meaning is that the deity is to lay lowthose who are (already and voluntarily) 'crestlessand headless.' It is strange indeed that neitherWhitney nor Przyluski refer to the closely relatedverse RV T. 104. 245 AV 8. 4. 24 'O Indra,smite the sorcerer(ydtudhahnam),male and female,whose resource is magic; let the headless (v'gri-vasah) followers-of-inert-Gods (mu'radevhk)6per-

ish, let them not see the sun arise.' In the followingverse Indra and Soma are called upon to 'watchout for' and to hurl their weapon at the sorcerousRaksas; the whole hymn is addressed to Indraand Soma considered as allies in battle againstthe powers of darkness, referred to as Raksases,etc. and describedby a variety of epithets as dis-turbers of the Sacrifice,haters of the chant (brah-madvisa), and most significantly as 'of terriblelooks' (ghora-cakcsas,Grassmann 'der grausigeAugen hat ').7 The reference of the whole, andthereforeultimately of 4. 18 (even if the contingentapplication is there to human sorcerers) is to theRape of Soma (needed by Indra and the Gods forthe performanceof the Sacrifice) and the need ofprotection from Soma's original possessors whoare ever seeking to recover their stolen property:the 'Raksases' are precisely the GandharvaSoma-raksases of the Brahmanas,8whom the Soma-thiefand Soma himself successfully elude and over-come,-the word raksas, literally 'guardian,' ac-quiring its evil significance only because the

6 Cf. also RV 4. 26, 27 and 10. 87. RV 7. 104. 4, 5enables us to understand that the crashing stones ofAV 4. 18. 3 are fiery bolts.e In RV 4. 26. 7 it is from the 'fools' (mnar4h) thatthe Falcon (Indra or Agni), who is 'no fool' (dmarah),carries off the Soma. I shall not discuss manra here; mytranslation assumes a meaning as in PB 25.17. 3 wherePrajapati is 'stupefied by eld' (jirjyy miira4) andwhile in that condition unable to quicken the universe.Whitney renders minradevd4 by 'false worshippers,' i. e.

worshippers of false gods, and dnrtadevd4 in v. 14 by'false gods': but this expression has a rather differentconnotation in modern English, and dnrtadevdh reallymeans 'gods whose nature is untruth' or 'gods whospeak untruth' (4sat in v. 13 = asatyam), i.e. theAsuras; cf. RV 10. 87. 11 'who strike at order withdisorder' (Stdm y6... anrtena hainti). Their respectiveadherence to Truth and Untruth is a familiar distinctionof Devas from Asuras (iB 9. 5. 1. 12, cf. 14. 1. 1. 33),and of Devas from men (6B I. 1. 1. 4, 3. 9. 4. 1). Forthe power of Truth cf. iB 6. 7. 1. 2; and since gold isTruth and Light and Immortality, the tying of a pieceof gold to the ring-finger in connection with the resolu-tion ' Now shall I take hold of Soma' in iB 3. 9. 41 isreally an Act of Truth, and just as much so as if a Truthhad been verbally enunciated.

7 Cf. BC 13. 50 'like an ASIvisa seeking to burn withhis eye of fire' (netragnindhivisavad didhaksuh). TheSoma guardians of the Vedic tradition (who are origi-nally Indra's enemies, but become his servants) aretypically 'dragons ' (8p aKwv, ' serpent,' V &epKO/aLL, drh,'look') whose 'evil eye' can destroy whatever it per-ceives; for this reason in VS 5. 34 KERanu,Indra's Soma-guardian, is besought to look upon the sacrificer 'withthe eye of a friend' (mitrasya ma caksusiksadhvam),i. e. not with his 'evil eye.' So also in the Greek andMesopotamian traditions, the deadly glance of the ophi-dian guardians of the Tree or Water of Life is repeatedlyemphasized. Cf. also A. H. Krappe, Balor with the EvilEye (N. Y. 1927).8 The combination soma-raksas does not appear in RVbut it is implied by the verb, e. g. in 9. 83. 4 ' Gandharvaever guards its place' (gandharvd itth4 padirm asyaraksati). In iB 3. 6. 2. 2. 9 the Gandharva Soma-guardians guard him.



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COOMA-RASWAMY: HeadlessMagicians;and an Act of Truth 217hymns are naturally constituted from the point ofview of the mundane Gods and men whose well-being dependsuponthe due performanceof the ritesfor which the possession of Soma is indispensable.The mythical backgroundof our hymns, alludedto above, will enable us better to understand theinclusion amongst the sorcerers of some who aredescribed as 'headless.' I have dealt rather fullyelsewhere with the significance of 'decapitation'whether for good or evil and shown that it is acharacteristic power of the Gods of the Other-world to be able to 'play fast and loose with theirheads.'9 There is no need, then, to suppose thatthe 'headless ' sorcerers have been deprived oftheir heads against their will, or are dead becausetheir heads are off. Much rather, it is within theirpower to present themselves in the terrifyingform of a headless but living trunk.Now, the Bodhisatta'sconflict with Mara (VedicMrtyu) is, assuredly, a later recension of Indra's

battle with the Asuras.'0 The earlier Buddhistaccounts (J 1. 74, etc.) tell us only that Mira'sfollowers assumed a variety of appearances, butwe find in the Mlahavastu (Senart, 2. 410) theexplicit statement that while some were many-headed, 'some were headless trunks' (anye as'r-sakadkabandhth), and similarly in the LalitaVistara (ch. 21, Lefmann p. 306) that 'somewere headless' (kecid asiirsdh). It is obvious thatit is not by the Bodhisatta that the demons havebeen beheaded, since it is not by violence, but byhis masterly inactivity that the victory is won.Thus we have found that amongst the GandharvaSoma-raksases,to whom Agni, Indra, Soma, andthe Gods of this world and human sacrificers areopposed, there are some described as ' headless,'and that in the Buddhist recensions of what isreally the same everlasting battle there are 'head-less' members of Mdra'shost. It was, in fact, thepurpose of the present article to explain the strangeiconography of a fragmentary stucco sculpturefrom Hadda, now in the Musee Guimet, and pub-lished by Hackin, who calls it a 'Demon s'ar-rachant la tete' and says that this fragment'figurait dans le groupe des suppots de Mara, dis-poses autour d'un Bouddha central."' The demon'sneck is, indeed, interrupted (vigriva ) and thehead, upheld with both hands, is off (vsisirsa );the movement suggests that the head is being re-peatedly removed and replaced, with a view toterrify the Bodhisatta. Once more a detail of theBuddhist mythology and iconography has beentraced to pre-Buddhist sources, at the same timethat another source has been adduced for theworldwidemotive of the wizardswhose arts enablethem to play fast and loose with their own heads.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Indra and Namuci,in Speculum 19. 104-25 (1944). On decapitation as adisenchantment see R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth andArthurian Romance, 98-105 (1927). Some further mate-rial will be found in K. N. Chadwick Imbas Forosnai inScottish Gaelic Studies 4. 97-135 (1935). Battalions of'headless men ' form part of a wizard army in the Irishtale of the Death of Muircertach mac Erca (see Crossand Slover as cited in Note 1, p. 524). Durga as Chinna-masta ('Decapitate') holds her own head in her hand,see my Catalogue of the Indian Collections, Boston, V,Rajput Paintings, 241-2 (1926). The power to play fastand loose with their own heads is attributed also toTaoist magicians, see A. Waly, Monkey 241-2 (1942),where, however, the Taoists fail because when the severedhead is removed and lost they cannot grow another, asthe Monkey can. The motive of the severed head restoredoccurs also in H. A. Giles Strange Stories from a ChineseStudio 78 (1880); and that of the severed head thatspeaks, in the Erbygga Saga. Professor Plumer of AnnArbor informs me that it is a common gesture in Chinafor a man who wishes to confirm the truth of his wordsto raise both his hands to his head as if to lift it fromhis shoulders, saying at the same time 'I give you myhead, if this is not so '; this is, again, a sort of Act ofTruth.

10As briefly demonstrated in my Hinduism and Bud-dhism 68 (1943). Buddhist texts, e. g. SN 425 f, identifyMdra with Namuci, i. e. Vrtra (6B 11. 15, 5. 7 and 12. 7.3. 4 pdpmd vai vrtrah .. . pdpma vai namucih).11J. Hackin, La sculpture indienne et tibetaine auMuuseeGuimet, 9 and pl. XIV (Paris 1931).


headless magicians - act of truth

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