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 176

III KÂNDA, 6 ADHYAYA, I BRÂHMANA, 5.
141
Sadas; for whatever food is eaten here on earth, all that settles down in the belly. And because all the gods sat (sad) in it, therefore it is called sadas: and so do these Brahmans of every family now sit therein. By way of deity it belongs to Indra.
2. In the middle of it he puts up a (post) of udumbara wood (Ficus Glomerata); for the udumbara means strength and food; now the Sadas being his (Vishnu's belly), he thereby puts food therein; this is why he puts up an udumbara (post) in the middle of it.
3. From the peg' which stands in the middle on the hind-part of the altar, he strides six steps eastwards (along the spine'); the seventh he strides away from it to the right, for the sake of completeness, and there marks off a pit.
4. He takes the spade with (Våg. S. V, 26), 'At the impulse of the divine Savitri, I take thee with the arms of the Asvins, with the hands of Pashan: thou art a woman;' the significance of this formula is the same (as before). That spade, indeed, is a female (feminine): therefore he says 'thou art a woman.'
5. He then marks off the pit with, 'Herewith
six cubits (or ten, or one half that of the long side). The udumbara post, according to some, is to stand exactly in the centre of the shed; or, according to others, at an equal distance from the (long) east and west sides; the 'spine' (cf. p. 112, note 2) in that case dividing the building into two equal parts, a northern and a southern one. In the middle the shed is to be of the sacrificer's height, and from thence the ceiling is to slant towards the ends where it is to reach up to the sacrificer's navel. According to the Black Yagus, the erection of the Sadas precedes the digging of the Uparavas, described in the preceding Brâhmana. Taitt. S. VI, 2, 10, II.
1 The antahpata, see III, 5, 1, 1.
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