Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

SR No.: 007679
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2382
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 385

356
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
2. He spreads it in front of the Gârhapatya, on the Vedi, with the hairy side upwards, and the neck towards the east: thereon they appease that layer. Now he sprinkles (the bricks);-when he sprinkles, he thereby makes it pure, sacrificially clean;-with clarified butter (he sprinkles), for that is pure, sacrificially clean; and also with the view of its being unsurpassed1, for no other sacrificial food is sprinkled with ghee;-silently (he sprinkles), for what is (done) silently is undefined, and the undefined is everything: by means of everything he thus makes it pure, and sacrificially clean; and also with the view of its being unsurpassed, for no other sacrificial food is sprinkled silently.
3. And, again, why he sprinkles, this (layer of bricks) is sacrificial food, and as such he bastes it "; for whatever sacrificial food is buttered, and basted, that is palatable and sacrificially clean. With ghee (he bastes it), for sacrificial food is basted with ghee; silently (he does so), for silently sacrificial food is basted;-by means of stalks of Kusa grass, for these are pure, and sacrificially clean;-by means of the tops, for the top is sacred to the gods.
4. As to this they say, 'When he sprinkles only the first layer, how does that whole fire-altar of his come to be sprinkled, how does it come to be led forward on the skin, and how led forward by the horse 3?' Inasmuch as in this (layer) he (symbolically) sprinkles the bricks of all the layers; and
4
Literally, for not surmounting.
2 See part i, p. 192, note 1.
On the leading forward of the fire, and laying it down on the foot-print of a horse, see II, 1, 4, 23 seq.
According to Kâty. XVII, 3, 18-19 some ritualists would seem to put the (yagushmatî) bricks of all the layers on the skin. But
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