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I ADHYAYA, 3 KHANDA, 4.
top of the great trees, that is the most auspicious time for all kinds of sacrifices, unless there be a special rule.
3. With a genial mind, clean, on a pure, protected spot, having cooked a full, thin mess of rice, he offers that cooked oblation to the deities of the festivals of the new and full moon, distributing it in the due way.
4. In the oblations of cooked food the acts of taking (the intended oblation), of putting it down (near the fire), and of sprinkling it (with water) are performed with regard to the deities of the (respective) Mantras.
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3. On vighana, which I have translated thin, see the note in the German edition, pp. 119 seq.
The deities of the festivals of the new and full moon (i. e. of the rites which in the Srauta ritual correspond to that taught here) are, at the full moon, Agni and Agnîshomau, at the new moon, Agni, Vishnu, and Indrâgnî, who are preceded in both cases by Agni and Soma as the deities of the two âgyabhagas (see below, ch. 9, 7), and followed by Agni Svishtakrit. For more detailed statements see Hillebrandt, Das altindische Neu- und Vollmondsopfer (Jena, 1879), pp. 102 seq.
4. For instance, the taking of the portion of food destined to Agni should be performed with the Mantra: Agnaye tvâ gushtam grihnâmi, &c. A number of ceremonies common to the Sthâlîpâka ritual and to the ordinary ritual of Âgya oblations, such as the strewing of Kusa grass round the fire, the ceremonies regarding the Pavitras (strainers), &c., have to be supplied here from the Âgya ritual given below (ch. 7 seq.); this may be looked upon as an argument in favour of our conjecture which will be stated in the preface (vol. ii of the Grihya-sûtras), that our text, as probably is the case also with the Pâraskara-sûtra, is based on an original, the opening sentences of which are preserved to us in Sânkh. I, 5, 1-5 Pâraskara I, 4, 1-5, so that the first chapters of Sânkhâyana, and among them the exposition of the festivals of the full and new moon, would have been prefixed to the original commencement of the text.
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