Satapatha Brahmana

SR No.: 011120
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller, Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1987
Total Pages: 433
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 36 MB

Page 159

VIII KANDA, 7 ADHYAYA, 2 BRAHMANA, 5. 133
eminently with power 1, and makes the nobility more powerful than the peasantry. And the other (bricks) he lays down singly, with separate formulas: he thereby makes the peasantry less powerful than the nobility, differing in speech, and of different thoughts (from one another).
4. The first two (Lokamprinâs) he lays down in that (south-east) corner: he thereby places yonder sun in that quarter: from this (earth) he follows him (the sun) from that (place) there2; from this (earth) he follows him from that (place) there; from this (earth) he follows him from that (place) there; from this (earth) he follows him from that (place) there.
5. And in whatever place he lays down the first two (bricks), let him there lay down alongside of
1 In the translation of VII, 5, 2, 14 (part 1, p. 404), the passage 'having taken possession of the man by strength,' which was based on a wrong reading (see Weber, Berl. Cat. II, p. 69), should read thus: having pre-eminently endowed man with power' (or, perhaps, having placed him above (others) in respect of power,' St. Petersb. Dict)
2 I do not know whether atas' might be taken here in the sense of thither,' or whether it goes along with 'tasmât,' merely strengthening it. The meaning in either case would seem to be this. In the first turn of filling up the empty spaces he first moves along from the south-east corner (the point where the sun rises) to the back or west end of the spine (the place where the sun sets) and the central brick, and having thus, as it were, touched the earth again, he proceeds from there in the same sunwise fashion, filling up the north part of the altar until he reaches the east end of the spine, and there, as it were, touches the earth once more. In the second turn he again begins (with the second brick) in the south-east, and repeats the same process, in filling up the south part of the altar, and completing at the southeast corner. The laying down of the Lokamprinâs would thus be supposed to occupy the full space of two days and two nights.