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CHHU-MANTHAR AS A SING-SANSKRIT TERM

S. Mandihassan

The Sanskrit word, manthar, would correspond to the Arabic word 'amal. Accordingly, a "formula against snake bite" would be, in Hundusthani, either sanp-ka-manthar or sanp-ka-`amal, equating, manthar=`amal. We otherwise know that when a for­mula, manthar or `amal, is recited, the cure is immediate, but the mechanism of action challenges common sense. On the con­trary, there must be something positively mysterious on account of which the formula would owe its power. The word manthar is well known and cannot be considered mysterious. To make it effective there is the necessity of adding a word, obviously unknown, and as such something mysterious.

We now turn to the Chinese. Giles[1] gives, as character 2638, the word chhu, translating it as "to get rid of". Alongwith it we find the term chhu-ping. Ping appears as character 9300, meaning "disease, sickness". Then the term chhu-ping would literally mean "to get rid of a disease". As it often happens in colloquial language, terms are abbreviated. Here it means that chhu-ping has been reduced to chhu, when this alone would suggest "get rid of the disease," with the word disease or ping in Chinese being understood. Now Dore[2] actually gives the word chhu, as the abbreviated substitute of chhu-ping. He renders chhu properly as follows: "to remove, e.g. a disease, or its cause, to root out". Thus chhu=chhu-ping. Then chhu of popular usage was taken as the loan-word and prefixed to manthar. Chhu, being unknown, as a word, functioned, on that account, as the mysterious additive to manthar relatively well known. With such addition chhu-manthar became a generic formula which, when pronounced, would root out any disease.

It is like uttering the term "Open Sesame" in Arabian Nights when Sesame remains something mysterious and precisely, on that account, valuable. Chhu in chhu-manthar occupies such a position, and chhu being a verb makes the term meaningful.

Summary. A magical formula, or manthar, should have a mysterious element to be effective. A general formula against disease would be chhu-manthar, when manthar means formula while chhu would be the real mysterious element. In Chinese it is the abbreviated term chhu-ping, to root out a disease. Then chhu-manthar signifies "remove the disease" and, as such, the term becomes meaningful. But the chhu remaining unknown, it functions as a mysterious element, when chhu-manthar becomes a magical formula—to expel a disease so forth.

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