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 72

V KÂNDA, 2 ADHYAYA, 3 BRÂHMANA, 3.
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(sruva)? They take a firebrand from the Anvâhâryapakana (or southern) fire, and therewith go southward. And where he finds a self-produced hollow 2 or cleft, -
3. Having there made up a fire, he offers with (Vâg. S. IX, 35),‘This, O Nirriti, is thy portion: accept it graciously, hail!' For Nirriti is this (Earth); whomsoever she seizes upon with evil, him she seizes upon with destruction (nirriti): hence whatever part of this (Earth) is of the Nirriti nature, that he thereby propitiates; and thus Nirriti does not seize upon him, while being consecrated. And the reason why he offers in a self-produced hollow or
1 The authorities of the Black Yagus prepare therewith a cake on one kapala. Taitt. S. I, 8, 1.
* Sâyana, perhaps rightly, takes 'irina' here (and on Taitt. S. vol ii, p. 6) in the sense of Ashara,' a spot of barren (or saline) soil. Cf. VII, 2, 1, 8: 'In whatever part of this (earth) there is produced (of itself) a cleft, or in whatever part of it plants are not produced, verily that part of it Nirriti seizes upon.'-Kausika-sätra XIII, 28 (A. Weber, Omina und Portenta, p. 386) recommends the following propitiatory rites in case of a sudden cleft in the ground:
If in the village, or house, or fire-house, or meeting-place, (the ground) should burst open, four cows are got ready, a white, a black, a red, and a one-coloured one. For twelve days he puts down the butter, milked together from these. In the morning of the twelfth, having made up a fire north of where there was that clest, having swept and sprinkled it, and strewn sacrificial grass around it; and having mixed (the butter) with ghee from the white (cow), and addressed it (the spot) with the three verses, Ath.-veda XII, 1, 19–21 ("Agni is in the earth, in the plants, the waters carry Agni, Agni is in the flints, Agni is within men; in cows, in horses are Agnis," &c.), and touched it, let him then offer. In the same way on the south side; in the same way on the western side. Having concluded on the north side, let him offer with the (formulas addressed) to Vastoshpati (the tutelary genius of the dwelling). Having poured the refuse in the cleft, and completed the oblations, he sprinkles the cleft with lustral water.'
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