ZBORNIK - Matica srpska

ate in the Iliad, mean objective disaster, as it so commonly does in
tragedy." 3
“Practically always, ate is a state of mind, a temporary clouding
or bewildering of the normal consciousness. It is, in fact, a partial or
temporary insanity, and, like all insanity, it is ascribed, not to physiological
or psychological causes, but to an external daemonic agency.
It is by no means a synonym for, or a result of, wickedness. Nor is it
the punishment for guilty rashness." 4
In other words all abnormal emotional states have their source
in unseen (adrishta) but very tangible forces. This gift of power can
be in forms other than of inspiration to the individual. It can be a
gift of offspring as were the sons of Kunti, or a gift of weapons as
to Parasurama or Arjuna. The muthos of divine origin of weapons
whether of Achilles or of Rama or a host of other heroes is certainly
more than an aetiological expansion of the fact that good
weapons were scarce in ancient times and therefore they were so
highly prized that they comprised of the most precious part of the
legacy of a family or a line of fighters. Weapons which had been
endowed with a divine efficacy, by virtue of their godly origin or as
often in India consecrated with the use of a mantra (mantraputa,
literally meaning purified with a mantra), were obviously not exceptionally
better than the usual ones in make but only in 'potency'
which was a part of the cultural belief. 5
A converse to the belief that power and vitality purify is that
their loss is the primary miasma. When there is a decline in the natural
force, the element or the sattva of a person, human or divine,
the state of impurity begins. Lunar or solar eclipse is the most obvious
example of cosmic impurity. In the Indian muthos of eclipse,
the Sun and the Moon were overpowered by Rahu till Vishnu came
to free them. The eclipses are a repetition of first eclipsing of the
powers of Sun and Moon.
From this it follows that any loss of limb in the body is also
impurity. The lame, deformed or misshapen would thus be kept
away at the time of an auspicious ceremony. Just as eclipse is a
temporary loss in the cosmic body (the brahmanda or the bigger
egg), disease or menstruation is a loss in the human body (the pinda).
From physical loss there is one small step to loss of status,
wealth, good name (time) or vow. Whatever, is essential or elemental
to individual existence or public esteem or particular or general
health, if lost or even eclipsed leads to pollution. This miasma can
strike a people or family and succeed from one generation to another.
The children of a succeeding generation may have to pay for
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