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 34

SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA,
he assuredly would cut asunder the mind. This brick is threefold : the meaning of this has been explained.
SECOND BRAHMANA. 1. And at the back (western part of the altar), with (Vâg. S. XIII, 56), "This one behind, the all-embracer;'-the all-embracer, doubtless, is yonder sun, for as soon as' he rises, all this embracing space comes into existence. And because he speaks of him as (being) 'behind,' therefore one sees him only when he goes towards the back (west). The Sun, indeed, having become the eye, remained behind: it is that form he now bestows (on Agni).
2. 'His, the all-embracer's child, the Eye,' - from out of that (all-embracing) form, the Sun, he fashioned the eye ;-'the rains, the offspring of the eye,' from out of the eye he fashioned the rainy season ;-'the Gagatî, the daughter of the rains,'-- from out of the rainy season he fashioned the Gagatî metre;- from the Gagati the Ruksama,'—from out of the Gagatî metre he fashioned the Riksama hymn-tune? ;-'from the Riksama
Or, perhaps, only when' (yada-eva).. ? No explanation of this sâman has been found anywhere. Sayana, on the couesponding formula, Taitt. S IV, 3, 4, 2 (where the term is spelt rikshama), merely remarks that it is 'a kind of saman.' The meaning of the term similar to a rik' would seem to indicate a hymn-tune involving little, or no, modification of the text chanted to it. At V, 4, 1, 5 it is the Vairûpa-sâman which (together with the Gagati, the Saptadasa-stoma, the rainy season, and the Vis) is in this way connected with the West. Now the textual parts of the Pañkanidhanam Vairûpam (Sâma-v., vol. v, pp. 387, 575-6), ordinarily used as a prishtha-saman, show