Note 55 — Chapter VI · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

While plans or proposals are being made, it is considered inauspicious if any one sneezes or the sound of a lizard is heard.55 Meeting a person of the depressed classes whose touch is pollution, or a Bráhman who accepts funeral gifts, is considered inauspicious.56 Meeting a woman who is in her menses, a mourner, a buffalo, a snake and a diwad are considered inauspicious.57 An iron vessel or an iron bar, cow dung cakes, salt, grass, a broom, a vulture, and a washerman bringing with him dirty clothes are also considered to be inauspicious omens.58