Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 883

I KÂNDA, 2 ADHYÂYA, 3 BRÂILMANA, 9. 51 efficacy as all those sacrificed animal victims would have for him, so much efficacy has this oblation (of rice &c.) for him who knows this. And thus there is in this oblation also that completeness which they call the fivefold animal sacrifice.'
8. When it (the rice-cake) still consists of ricemeal, it is the hair? When he pours water on it, it becomes skin?. When he mixes it, it becomes flesh: for then it becomes consistent; and consistent also is the flesh. When it is baked, it becomes bone : for then it becomes somewhat hard; and hard is the bone. And when he is about to take it off (the fire) and sprinkles it with butter, he changes it into marrow. This is the completeness which they call 'the fivefold animal sacrifice.'
9. The man (purusha) whom they had offered up became a mock-man (kim-purusha"). Those two, the horse and the ox, which they had sacrificed,
1 According to Sayana, because, like the hair of the victim, the particles of the ground rice are minute and numerous. According to Ait. Br. II, 9, on the other hand, the awn or beard of the rice represents the hair; the husks the skin ; the minute particles of chaff removed by the final winnowings, the blood; the ground rice the flesh; and whatever other substantial part is in the rice' are the bones of the victim. s. Because it becomes as flexible as skin,' Sayana.
It is doubtful what particular kind of being the term kimpurusha (depraved man) is here intended to denote. The authors of the St. Petersburg Dictionary, whom Professor Weber follows (Ind. Stud. IX, 246), take it (probably correctly) to denote 'a monkey.' Professor Haug, on the other hand, in his translation of the corresponding passage in the Ait. Br. II, 8, thinks 'the author very likely meant a dwarf,' whilst Professor Max Müller (History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 420) translates it by 'a savage.' Perhaps one of the species of apes which particularly resemble man, is intended by it. Cf. Weber, Omina et Portenta, P. 356.
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