duhai
दुहाई duhāīA Hindī word for crying out in a name: public proclamation, the cry for help that calls on someone powerful enough to intervene, and, in a third dictionary sense, an oath or swearing. It is the commonest recurring marker of the printed Śābara compilations.
Where this term appears
- Duhāī: eight books, counted Treatise
Across eight independently compiled printed Śābara books, from six publishing houses in Delhi, Vārāṇasī and Prayāg, the most frequent recurrent marker is दुहाई,…
- The harm ledger Treatise
No documented harm attaches to the Śābara corpus by name. What the record documents attaches to a role and to an accusation: the *ojhā*, the named village ritual…
- The healer and the witch Treatise
The woman a village sends for when a child is feverish holds one capacity, and it is understood to point both ways. Whether she is called a healer or a witch is…
- The lock has an address Treatise
The doctrine that Śiva locked every other mantra and left the Śābara corpus alone unlocked is real and written down, and its home is Hindī. Its earliest located…
- The philology of unintelligibility Treatise
*Anmil ākhar*, ill-matched letters, is best read as a verdict on how the syllables are dressed: badly assorted, wrong for the sound of sacred speech, and effective…
- The Prophets among the authorities Treatise
Islamic figures are named throughout the printed popular Śābara corpus. *Paigambar*, the word for prophet, stands twice in the Delhi pocket paperback of 2016 and…
- The Saora, who are still there Treatise
The famous definition of *śābara* mantras, that they are addressed only to the deified ghosts of those who died violently, comes from a colonial caste gazetteer of…
- The six acts Treatise
The *ṣaṭkarma*, the six acts, is the grid the Sanskrit mantric compendia use to sort magical ritual, and it does not organise the Śābara corpus. In the few pages…