Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

SR No.: 007678
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1885
Total Pages: 2521
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 44 MB

Page 124

III KÂNDA, 4 ADHYAYA, I BRÂHMANA, 18.
89
sacrifice !, and so is that (cake) the fore-part of the sacrifice: therefore it is a cake on nine potsherds.
16. The enclosing-sticks are of kârshmarya wood (Gmelina Arborea?), for the gods, once upon a time, perceived that one, the kârshmarya, to be the Rakshas-killer among trees. Now, the guest-offering being the head of the sacrifice, the enclosingsticks are of kârshmarya wood, in order that the evil spirits may not injure the head of the sacrifice.
17. The prastara-bunch 3 is of asvavâla-grass (Saccharum Spontaneum). For, once upon a time, the sacrifice escaped from the gods. It became a horse (asva) and sped away from them. The gods, rushing after it, took hold of its tail (vála) and tore it out; and having torn it out, they threw it down in a lump, and what had been the hairs of the horse's tail then grew up as those plants (of asvavâla-grass). Now the guest-offering is the head of the sacrifice, and the tail is the hind-part (of animals): hence by the prastara being of asvavâla-grass he encompasses the sacrifice on both sides.
18. There are two vidhritis of sugar-cane, lest
Because the Gayatri metre is connected with the prâtahsavana or morning pressing. See IV, 2, 5, 20 seq.; Ait. Br. III, 27 seq.
? See I, 3, 3, 19-20, where the approved kinds of wood for the paridhis at an ishti are enumerated.
. For the prastara, or bunch of reed-grass, representing the sacrificer, see 1, 3, 3, 5 seq.; 8, 3, 11 seq. The asvavala (horsetail) grass (generally called kasa) is said to resemble horse-hair, and is used for twine, mats, thatch, &c. Sir H. M. Elliot, Races of the N. W. Prov.,' II, pp. 371, 372, describes it as growing from three to fifteen feet high, and flowering in great profusion after the rains; the base of the flowers being surrounded with a bright silvery fleece, which whitens the neighbouring fields so much as frequently to resemble a fall of snow.
. For the vidhriti or stalks laid across the barhis (sacrificial
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