[The Editor is indebted to the Deputy Registrar of the High Court of Madras, Appellate side, for the following translations, which were made by Mr. C. P. Brown, late Telugu Translator to Government, while he was Registrar of the Madras Sadr Court. The translations were made from two Telugu documents, which were referred to in the evidence of the prosecutor in a criminal case, F. 'A. No. 1435 of 1S39, No. 22 of the Cuddapah Calendar for the first Sessions of 1839, and sent up to the Faujdári ‘Adálat in return to their precept of the 5th August. 1839. The prisoner appears to have been indicted for the murder of a girl named Venkatasubbammá, whom he had enticed into his house and killed with a view of using her corpse as an ingredient in one of the following incantations. The murder took place on a Saturday evening and the body was found next day in a pagoda near the prisoner's house.]
TRANSLATION of book No. 3
(This is a set of magic spells written In Sanskrit.)
"Salutation to the Supreme Brahma! Salutation to Gaṇeça! Om[1]! I salute Bhagavatí, who ruleth all magic arts: who draweth all the gods: and all the ghosts: all, all destruction. to to; Swiftly seize on him, O thou who workest all things!"[2]
"O great Devadatta, O greatest of gods draw him. Mighty sprite (yakshiṇi) draw him. O thou science that sustainest Magic, draw him! Great Káli! Om! húm! mighty Káli of fevers! Om! Durgá, mighty Káli! Káli, Káli, O Káli jham Káli [here follow some unintelligible syllables] Karáli, Marali, strike strike him! [the next syllables are not in Sanscrit but in the Telugu language.] Fill thy mouth with blood! crow! crow! vomit blood. Stuff it! cram it! [the next words pikku pikku, pili pili, &c. are unintelligible] May his eyes turn in his head! May his bowels be twisted! may his heart shudder with horror! may his legs and joints totter! mangle him, break him like an unburnt potsherd,
- ↑ (As to this mystic ejaculation sec Böhtlingk and Roth's Sanskrit-Wörterbuch I. 1122. The current explanation—that it consists of three letters, a, u, m, combined and typifying the great divinities—appears to be erroneous.—Ed.
- ↑ The above lines and some others are so ignorantly written that the sense is a little obscure. Devadatta, the name now mentioned, is a fictitious name used in magic, like John Doe in law.
