ABSTRACT
With specific reference to the case study data I collected in Mehndipur, this chapter explores the way in which numerous problems, including, for instance, physical and mental illness, family tensions, loss of profits in business enterprise, failure to gain employment or to find a suitable marriage partner, are ascribed to supernatural agency. I will argue that the process of identifying the particular supernatural agent considered to be responsible for causing adversity is often closely connected with certain events, such as the untimely death (akal mrityu) of a family member, friend or neighbour, the cessation of ritual performance at specific shrines or temples, leaving the house or commencing certain tasks at inauspicious times, and journeying outside the home village or town. However, the manner in which these and many other events are linked with particular supernatural beings to which illness (rog/ bimari) and misfortune (abhagya/durbhagya) are attributed is extremely complex. For example, although women are typically held to be susceptible to possession or affliction by capricious spirits, a particular woman who is suffering from infertility (banjhpan) or from acute abdominal pain (pet dard) may not always invoke this explanation. She may be considered to have been bewitched by an angry neighbour with whom she is constantly arguing about shared land on which the livestock of their respective families graze; or she may be thought to have mistakenly consumed ensorcelled food offered to her husband by a jealous business rival. On the other hand, she may consult a local healer, such as a bhagat or a tantrik, and accept his pronouncement that her affliction is caused by an angry ancestor spirit (pitri devata) whose requests for particular offerings, such as food or clothes, have been ignored.
