Note 108 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

We have constant references to the same custom in the folk-tales. Lakshmana, in the Râmâyana, draws such a circle round Sîtâ when he is obliged to leave her alone. We have many references to the circle within which the ascetic or magician sits when he is performing his sorceries. Thus, in the story of Nischayadatta, the ascetics “quickly made a great circle with ashes, and entering into it, they lighted a fire with fuel, and all remained there muttering a charm to protect themselves.” In the tales of the Vetâla, we find the mendicant under a banyan tree engaged in making a circle, and Ksantisila makes a circle of the yellow powder of bones, the ground within which was smeared with blood, and which had pitchers of blood placed in the direction of the cardinal points.108