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 856

300
THE LI RI.
BK. IV.
19. The son of Heaven prays for (a blessing on) the coming year to the Honoured ones of heaven ; sacrifices with an ox, a ram, and a boar at the public altar to the spirits of the land, and at the gates of towns and villages; offers the sacrifice three days after the winter solstice with the spoils of the chase to all ancestors, and at the five (household) sacrifices; —thus cheering the husbandmen and helping them to rest from their toils'.
20. The son of Heaven orders his leaders and commanders to give instruction on military opera
pretation. The king, of the text however, has also the meaning which appears in the translation; though on that view the statement is not so general. See the 'Narratives of the States,' I, ii. 8.
The most common view seems to be that we have here the various parts of one sacrificial service, three days after the winter solstice, called ka (k), in the time of Kâu, and la ( ), in that of Khin. While the son of Heaven performed these services, it must have been at different places in the capital I suppose, analogous and modified services were celebrated generally throughout the kingdom.
There is no agreement as to who are intended by the Honoured ones of heaven.' Many hold that they are the six Honoured ones,' to whom Shun is said to have sacrificed in the second part of the Shů King. But the Khien-lung editors contend that the want of
six' is a fatal objection to this view. Kao Ya, supposing the six Honoured ones to be meant, argued that heaven, earth, and the four seasons' were intended by them, those seasons co-operating with heaven and earth in the production of all things; but the same editors show, from the passages in the Shů, that heaven can in no sense be included among the six Honoured ones. They do not say, however, who or what is intended by the designation in the text. The la in the paragraph is taken in a pregnant sense, as if it were lieh (x, and not al), meaning to sacrifice with the spoils of the chase.'
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