There is a section of Sayings of the Buddha that lists seven childish arts that a monk should never pursue.[1] Each of the seven paragraphs in this section begins and ends with the very same words, but all they say is that a monk should refrain from the seven childish arts listed. Each one represents an aspect of his moral behavior. Every list is on the long side, but they are all well worth reproducing in full. In fact, they are fabulous all by themselves. Here they are in the sequence in which they appear in the original:

Palm reading, reading omens and signs, interpreting celestial portents, interpreting dreams, fortune-telling from marks on the body, reading omens from the marks on cloth gnawed by mice, offering fire oblations, offering oblations from a ladle, offering to the gods husks, red rice-powder, ghee, and oil, making offerings from the mouth into the fire, offering oblations of blood, reading the knuckles, determining the site of a house as lucky or not, making predictions for ministers of state, laying demons in a cemetery, laying ghosts, knowing the charms for living in an earthen house, snake-charming, poison craft, scorpion craft, mouse craft, bird craft, crow craft, telling the number of years a man has to live, reciting charms to protect against arrows, knowing the language of animals.[2]

Reading the good-luck signs in gems, staffs, garments, swords, arrows, bows, weapons, women, men, boys, girls, slaves, slave-girls, elephants, horses, buffaloes, bulls, oxen, goats, sheep, chickens, quails, monitor lizards, ear-rings, tortoises, and other animals.[3]

Making predictions: the princes will march out, they will march back; our princes will attack, the enemy’s will retreat; the enemy’s princes will attack, and ours will retreat; our princes will gain the victory, and the enemy’s will suffer defeat; the enemy’s princes will gain the victory, and ours suffer defeat; thus victory will be theirs, and defeat theirs.[4]

Predicting there will be an eclipse of the moon, an eclipse of the sun, an eclipse of a star; the sun or the moon will follow their normal course; the stars will follow their normal course, the stars will depart from their normal course; there will be a fall of meteors, a glow in the skies, an earthquake, thundering of the gods; there will be a rising or a setting, a darkening or brightening of the sun, moon, stars; predicting such and such a result from an eclipse of the moon or the sun, their departure from their normal course, a fall of meteors, or the brightening of the sun, moon, stars.[5]

Predicting abundant rainfall, a drought, a good harvest; a famine, peace, danger, disease, health; making calculations on the fingers, or in the head, estimating amounts, composing verse, studying the nature of the world.[6]

Fixing a lucky day for bringing home or sending out a bride or groom to be married; fixing a lucky time for making or breaking of contracts, for saving or spending money, using charms to make people lucky or unlucky, giving medicine to stop a woman from miscarrying, making charms to paralyze the tongue or lock the jaw, reciting spells to control a man’s hands or to cause deafness; obtaining oracular answers from a mirror, a girl, or a god; worshiping of the sun, the great one, breathing fire, invoking Siri.[7]

Vowing gifts to a god in return for a favor, paying such vows, repeating the charms for living in an earthen house, causing virility, causing impotence, determining lucky sites for building, consecrating such sites, ritually rinsing the mouth, giving ritual baths, making offering into the sacrificial fire; administering emetics and purgatives, expectorants, ear-drops, eye-drops, nose-drops, collyrium and ointment for the eyes; practicing as an eye-doctor, a surgeon, a children’s doctor, administering medicines from roots, administering and expelling herbal medicines.[8]

These seven lists are priceless. They contain everything we know about sorcery, witchcraft, magic, enchantment, conjuring, divination, spells, or wizardry some two millennia and a half ago. In sum, they tell us a great deal about the last vestiges of shamanism at the time. Amazingly, all the practices listed by the Buddha are still alive and well. What is more, they are universal, just as shamanism was. All the world religions have suppressed such practices for millennia, but to no avail. Anyhow, this is the best list of lists of shamanistic practices I have ever come across. It is precious. On top of that, it comes out of the mouth of no-one else but the Blessed One. Alleluia!

Footnotes

1. A Selection of Suttas from the Pali Nikayas, translated by Rupert Gethin, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 23-25.

2. Op. cit., p. 23.

3. Loc. cit.

4. Op. cit., pp. 23-24.

5. Op. cit., p. 24.

6. Loc. cit. The last item in the list refers to the ancient Indian school of materialism (p. 274).

7. Loc. cit. Siri is the goddess of good fortune and the consort of Vishnu (p. 274).

8. Op. cit., p. 25.