Occult Powers of Healing in the Panjab. 327
" In the village of Mama Khaira, Tahsil Shakargarh, is a Khaira Jat named Labhu, who takes a woollen thread and ties five or seven knots upon it, repeating the name of God, and gives it to anyone afflicted with chandri (boils). The patient wears it on his neck, and the chandri is healed. It is said that this power is inherited by the family from generation to generation. Labhu cannot say how the power came into his family. The thread is prepared on any day of the week, and nothing is taken as compensation." (Gurdaspur.)
"The Mianas (a Gujar clan) of Mangat, who are descended from one Chandhar, can cure scrofula by reciting a secret charm over a thread of cotton in which several knots are tied mean- while. The patient wears this thread round his neck for forty days." (Gujrat.)
" Khilanda Mai Naring of Rajanpur says that a Saniasi Faktr^^ taught him a charm for curing rheumatism, and that he used to cure the disease by giving his patients a string made of black wool, but for the last year all his teeth have been broken and no patient has come to him." (Dera Ghazi Khan.)
- ' Members of the family of one Ghulam Bhik, headman of
Shahabad in Tahsil Thanesar, can avert an attack of tertian fever by the following charm. The operator takes a piece of fibre and ties in it seven knots, reciting the Mohammedan kalima as he ties each knot. This charm is called gandi (knot), or taga (thread), and it should be prepared two hours before the attack is expected. A man should tie the fibre round his right arm, a woman round her left, and before doing this a //(T^-worth of sweetmeats should be given to the children who are present. When taken off, the charm should be thrown into the well {sic), as a mark of respect." (Karnal.)
Here we have the combined virtues of the healer and the words, giving power to the sympathetic magic of the
"^ Sanidsts, a sect, or rather order, of Hindu ascetics, who, having died to the world in initiation, are, on physical death, buried and not burnt. Strictly speaking, a Sanidst is any Hindu who, having passed through the three stages of life, enters on the fourth or last, which is termed sanyds or abandonment of the world. The change in the meaning of the term is curious.
