In nearly all shaman ceremonies, several texts are performed consecutively. Only the session's opening text would include a formal introduction like the first six lines here. Such beginnings shift the performance out of the confused, deteriorating present age into ideal, mythopoetic time and space, where it is possible for a shaman to cure a patient and change the world.Mahādev's posture here, spread out on the ground, may be related to a common Nepali proverb [quoted in Turner1980:498]:
V1.N68.T1.1.
आफै त महादेउ उत्तानु टाण,
Mahādeu himself has his limbs stretched out on the ground:
V1.N68.T1.2.
के देला बर।
what boon will he give?