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 71

36
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
SECOND BRÂHMANA. 1. He maintains silence; and silently he remains seated till sunset. The reason why he maintains silence is this:
2. By means of the sacrifice the gods gained that supreme authority which they now wield. They spake, 'How can this (world) of ours be made unattainable to men?' They sipped the sap of the sacrifice, even as bees would suck out honey; and having drained the sacrifice and scattered it by means of the sacrificial post, they disappeared : and because they scattered (yopaya, viz. the sacrifice) therewith, therefore it is called yûpa (post)".
3. Now this was heard by the Rishis. They collected the sacrifice. As that sacrifice was collected (prepared)?, so does he who is consecrated collect the sacrifice (by keeping his speech within him),—for the sacrifice is speech.
| Professor Whitney (American Journal of Philology, III, p. 402) proposes to take yopaya here in the sense of to set up an obstacle, to block or bar the way.' He remarks, 'How the setting up of a post should operate to "efface traces " cannot easily be made to appear.' I am not aware that any one has supposed that it was by the setting up' of the post that the traces of the sacrifice were obliterated. From what follows_ They collected the sacrifice'-it seems to me pretty clear that our author at any rate connects yopaya' with the root yu, to mix, stir about, and hence to efface the traces by mixing with the ground, or by scattering about. This causative was evidently no longer a living form, but resorted to for etymological purposes.
? Or, perhaps, They collected the sacrifice in the same way as this (present) sacrifice has been collected. See, however, the corresponding passage III, 2, 2, 29; 4, 3, 16. The Kârva text is clearer : Tam yathâ yatharshayo yagñam samabharams tathấyam yagñah sambhrito yatho vai tad rishayo yagfiam samabharann evam u vâ esha etad yagñam sambharati yo dîkshate.
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