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 809

SECT. I. PT. I.
THE YÜEH LING.
253
10. In this month there takes place the inauguration of spring. Three days before this ceremony, the Grand recorder informs the son of Heaven, saying,
On such and such a day is the inauguration of the spring. The energies of the season are fully seen in wood.' On this the son of Heaven devotes himself to self-purification, and on the day he leads in person the three ducal ministers, his nine high ministers, the feudal princes (who are at court), and his Great officers, to meet the spring in the eastern suburb?;
The building is made to consist of nine large apartments or halls; three fronting the different points of the compass, and one in the centre; making nine in all. That in the centre was called. The Grand Apartment of the Grand Fane;' south from it was 'The Ming Thang Grand Fane;' on the east 'The Khing Yang Grand Fane;' on the west The Jung Yang Grand Fane;' and on the north The Hsuan Thang Grand Fane.
In the second month of the seasons, the king went the round of the Grand Fanes. The four corner apartments were divided into two each, each one being named from the Grand Fane on the left or right of which it was. Commencing with the half on the left of the Khing Yang Fane, the king made the circuit of all the others and of the Fanes, returning to the other half on the right of the Hsüan Thang Fane in the twelfth month. The Grand Apartment in the centre was devoted to the imaginary season of the centre, between the sixth and seventh months, or the end of summer and beginning of autumn.
1 We are not told what the ceremonies in the inauguration of the spring were. The phrase li khun ( #) is the name of the first of the twenty-four terms into which the Chinese year is divided, dating now from the sun's being in the fifteenth degree of Aquarius. Kăng Hsüan thought that the meeting of the spring in the eastern suburb was by a sacrifice to the first of the five planetary gods,' corresponding to Jupiter, the Azure Tî, called Ling-wei-jang' ( Ap). But where he found that name, and what is its significance, is a mystery; and the whole doctrine
Digitized by Google