Note 77 — Chapter III · DISEASE DEITIES.
Reading edition
In the next place, it is also the office of the bhuvā to treat the sick. In cases when medicine is unavailing and where the malady is supposed to be the work of some evil spirit, the opinion of the bhuvā is sought by the relations of the patient and is given by the test of the scrutiny of grain.77 When the sick person is found to be under the influence of a spirit, the common mode of exorcising is to take an utār to the cemetery. An image of a human being is prepared out of the flour of adad (phaseolus radiatus) and is passed round the body of the sick person. The bhuvā then holds the image near his heart and stretches himself on a bier with the image on his bosom. In this condition the bhuvā is taken to the cemetery, and the evil spirit is believed to be driven by these means out of the patient’s body.78