Note on the power of entering another’s body

Note: this text is extracted from Book VIII, chapter 45.

On page 22 we were told that magic art was founded on Sāmkhya and Yoga, and could be described as the “supernatural power, and the independence of knowledge, the dominion over matter that is characterised by lightness and other mystic properties.”

Thus in a sentence we see the connecting link between philosophy and fiction, and we realise to what an extent magic has been enhanced by having such a philosophy for its foundation. If we briefly look into the teachings of this philosophy we shall see how easy and natural it was for the Hindu story-tellers to reach heights of imagination undreamt of by those of other nations, for they already had living examples of the strange powers acquired by Yoga practices. What some of these practices were we have already seen in Vol. I, p. 79n¹. These, however, are largely examples of asceticism which can be witnessed any day in India, and many of them are, of course, merely pretexts for obtaining money.

But if we look at the original teachings of the Yogasūtras of Patañjali, and still more the later Yoga teachings, we shall see how supernatural powers, such as those described in this and the preceding chapter of the Ocean of Story, are not in themselves a means of obtaining perfection, but form merely one stage in a progressive course to the final goal of salvation and emancipation.

In the present work, however, the greatest stress must be laid upon the magical technique of the Yoga philosophy, because to be king of the Vidyādharas, or magic-science holders, was the aim and destiny of our hero, Naravāhanadatta. Moreover, we are continually reading of men practising asceticism in order to obtain some magic power, which, when obtained, may be used either for good or bad purposes. Sometimes a certain magic power is awarded by a deity pleased at the asceticism performed in his or her name; such a power, as we have already seen (Vol. II, p. 212, 212n^l) is termed a vidyā — i.e. “science” or “art”—hence, of course, the name of the immortal beings who hold these “arts” by divine right — the Vidyādharas. The particular vidyā with which we are concerned here is that of entering another’s body. It is known by various names, such as paraśarīra-āveśa, parapurapraveśa, parakāyapraveśa; the usual terms in the Kathā are dehāntara-āveśa or anyadehapraveśako yogaḥ.

There are two distinct ways of entering the body of another, which we might distinguish as active and passive.

The active method is by far the commoner in folk-lore: a body is found abandoned, and another (often an enemy) enters into it, leaving the original occupant bodiless. There is, of course, the odd chance of the bodiless man finding the abandoned body of the other man and perforce entering it, and thus the two continue to dwell in each other’s bodies.

Readers will remember the incident of King Nanda in the Story of Vararuci, the first of our collection. Here (Vol. I, p. 37 et seq.) Indradatta enters the body of the dead king and rules the kingdom before it is known that the real Nanda is dead. The minister Śakatāla, however, suspects the truth and manages to destroy Indradatta’s vacated body, thus compelling him to remain in the dead Nanda’s body permanently. Cf. Tawney’s translation of Prabandhacintāmaṇi, p. 170. (In his article on this motif in Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., vol. lvi, 1917, p. 9, Bloomfield has, by mistake, referred to p. 271.)

In other cases, a dead body hanging from a stake, or lying on a pyre in a burning-ground, is animated by some mischievous Vetāla or Piśāca, who uses this as a means to achieve some nefarious object of his own, or merely to frighten the unwary soul who has wandered into the burning-ground. Such incidents usually lead to most gruesome and thrilling adventures, and (as we shall see in a later volume) sometimes form the frame-story of an important collection like the Vetāla-Pañcaviṃśatikā.

The passive method is what we might call the philosophical aspect, in which a man merely transfers his “mind-stuff” into that of another by concentration—a kind of hypnotism. It is obvious what a much better folklore motif the former makes, although the latter has also good possibilities. (See e.g. Mahābhārata, XIII, xl et seq., and to a lesser extent, XII, ccxc, and XV, xxvi.)

In his interesting article “On the Art of Entering Another's Body,” already referred to, Prof. Bloomfield gives numerous references to, and extracts from, works in Sanskrit literature in which the motif under discussion occurs.

A good example is found in the Kathākoça (Tawney, p. 39 et seq.). Here Prince Amaracandra, wishing to test the extent of his wife’s love, abandons his body (having recently been taught the art in return for a meritorious act), thus appearing dead. The faithful queen immediately prepares to ascend the funeral pyre, when the Prince reanimates his own body.

The most important of all such stories are those which concern either King Mukunda or Vikrama. The chief parts are played by a devoted queen, a hunchback and a parrot. The outline of this cycle of stories is very briefly as follows:—By a clever trick a hunchback manages to enter the abandoned body of the king, who has entered that of a dead Brāhman. The queen suspects the truth owing to the false king’s bad behaviour when in her presence, and finally obtains conclusive evidence on the point. After conferring with the chief minister she arranges a trap by means of a parrot which has just died. Lamentations fill the palace, and the queen calls aloud for some magician to make her pet live again, even if only for a short time. The false king, through conceit at his powers, at once abandons the king’s body and enters that of the parrot. This is the moment the queen has been waiting for. She calls her husband, who is still in the dead Brāhman’s body. He immediately abandons it and re-enters his own, leaving the hunchback, we may suppose, the choice of his own body, the parrot or the dead Brāhman.

This story also occurs (though not so fully) in Bloomfield’s Life and Stones of Pārçvanātha, pp. 74-83.

For variants see Frere, Old Deccan Days, p. 102 et seq.; J. H. Knowles, Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs, p. 98; Anaryan (i.e. F. F. Arbuthnot), Early Ideas, p. 131 et seq.; Butterworth, Zig-Zag Journeys in India, p. 167; E. J. W. Gibb, History of the Forty Vezirs, p. 313; Stein and Grierson, Hatim’s Tales, p. xxxi; and E. Cosquin, Études Folkloriques, 1922, p. 520 et seq. See also Chauvin, op. cit., v, p. 288, for several variants to the tale as it appears in Les Mille et un Jours (vol. ii, p. 81, of the 1783 Lille edition).— n.m.p.