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 31

xxviii
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
potsherd' no doubt is somewhat awkward, and, had it been possible, I should have preferred to use the simple obsolete word 'shard' or 'sherd' for it; but I decidedly object to either cup' or 'dish.' I gather from his suggestion, that we take entirely different views of the purpose and nature of the kapâla. I have to reject the proposed renderings for the very reason for which they commend themselves to Prof. Whitney, namely, because they imply so many vessels complete in themselves. He asks, whether I suppose that the Brahmans made their offerings on fragments of broken pottery?' Well, I certainly believe that the kapâlas are meant to represent the fragments of a broken dish. The sacrificial cake is to be baked on a dish, but for symbolic reasons this dish is supposed to be broken up into a number of pieces or kapalas. The symbolic significance of this seems to be a twofold one. On the one hand, the dish is to resemble the human skull. Hence we read Sat. Br. I, 2, 1, 2, 'The cake is the head of Yagra (the sacrifice, and symbolically the sacrificer himself); for those potsherds (kapâlâni) are what the skull-bones (sîrshnah kapalani) are, and the ground rice is nothing else than the brain.' On the other hand, the kapalas are usually arranged (see Part I, P. 34, note) in such a manner as to produce a fancied resemblance to the (upper 1) shell of the tortoise, which is a symbol of the sky, as the tortoise itself represents the universe. Thus with cakes on a single kapala, the latter is indeed a complete dish. In the same way the term ka pala, in the singular, is occasionally applied to the skull, as well as to the upper and the lower case of the tortoise, e.g. Sat. Br. VII, 5, 1, 2: “That lower kapala of it (the tortoise) is this world, for that (kapâla) is firmly established, and firmly established is this world, and that upper (kapala) is yonder sky, for it has its ends turned down, and so has that sky its ends turned down; and that which is between is that atmosphere : verily that same (tortoise) represents these worlds.' More usually, however, the term is applied to the single
Or perhaps the lower shell which represents the earth, being as it were a symbol of firmness and safety.
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