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"zAp" / "shaapa"

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"zAp" / "shaapa"

 

It is curious that ancient rishis could just utter a "zAp" and make

the concerned person go through disasters which, according to the

zAp-giver, are appropriate given the person's vice. And a rishi like

Durwas utters a zAp purely out of his anger caused by his personal

discomfort and not due to his perception of a wrong act. Even if we

prefer to overlook the unbelievable magical power of a zAp-giver to

cause some physical, real changes in the world, the act of zAp-

giving seems to have a believable logic.

In the Marathi language, an ordinary person, on whom some

person inflicts some pain out of sheer malice, quite naturally says

that that person will suffer his "TalaTalAt". The difference between

uttering a zAp and uttering words of TalaTalAt seems to me that

while the latter is a private utterance, a temporary act of

comforting oneself by saying that one will again have a normal,

happy life and the wrong-doer will have to suffer, the former

appears to be a public act with its well-established conventions. So

there might be formal eligibility conditions as to who can utter a

zAp and who will have to suffer it and who can escape. There might

also be elaborate means to utter or evade a zAp which are recognized

by a community.

Do my intuitions have any ground? Can you suggest me a book

or article?

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