A north Indian healer and the sources of his power

Abstract

This study of an eclectic magico-religious medical practitioner of Northern India is a symbolic explanation of the setting in which the curing takes place, the roles of the curer, his public image, and the items and actions of the curing ritual. It shows how this assemblage of symbols establishes expectations of help based on perceptions of the healer and his therapy as powerful, names what is wrong with the patient, suggests the alleviation of sickness-causing agents, and thereby contributes to the cure of the illness. Impressed by the miraculous reputation of the curer, a patient (generally a woman) comes to the ashram—the residence of holy men and the site of temples, which is auspiciously located where two streams converge. There she is treated by a curer who is both a holy man—a person with ascetically acquired superhuman powers, and a pujārī—a temple keeper and steadfast workshiper of the deities represented therein. In his curing he divines the cause of the illness, usually a malevolent spirit, and expels it with magical chants and diagrams and a symbolically potent wand. Finally he tells the patient how to compound the herbal medicine or how to alter her diet, and proclaims her imminent recovery. This mode of healing, in which natural remedies are combined with exorcism, is an expression of a world view which comprehends both natural and supernatural etiologies.