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APPENDIX III
however, that it is only in India that we find an overwhelming concern with the technical-ritualistic means to take away the sting of sacrificial death and to undo the injury.' This is manifestly erroneous. On the contrary it could be said that the consciousness of guilt and the tendency to shift the blame from one's shoulders was greater in ancient Greece since there we hear even of the stoning - symbolic or not - of the actual performers (Burkert 165f.). The magical means by which one tried to neutralize and annul the actual killing are attested with many peoples, and the agreements with details of the Vedic animal sacrifice are striking. Therefore it cannot be said with Heesterman (123) that the obsessive concern about the ritual undoing of the injury points to the impending collapse of the violent sacrifice.
It will be useful and instructive to quote here the main similarities which exist between the hunting and sacrificial customs of North Asiatic and other peoples collected by Meuli and the Vedic animal sacrifice. Quite generally it is said that in previous times men and animals lived in peace (Meuli 225). This has a parallel in the Indian legend of the ages of the world: in the kytayuga, the golden age, animals were inviolable (ahimsya), only in the tretayuga the animal sacrifice was introduced (Mbh 12.137.73–74). From India Meuli only quoted the victim's agreement to its own sacrifice (267 n. 2). 'Causing to agree' (samjñapana) is used in the Brāhmaṇas as a euphemism for ‘killing'; also the consent of the parents, brother and companion of the victim is required (SB 3.7.4.5). The victim's shivering and shuddering, caused by the sprinkling with water, is taken as consent (Meuli 264f.); this is also known in Greece (266f.). Although the animal is sprinkled with water in Vedic India, this particular interpretation is not attested in the sources, but we know it in recent times from Nepal (Witzel 391 n.54). With Hindukush tribes shaking the head three times counts as consent of the goat (Jettmar 212); here the additional question is asked whether the offering is welcome to the gods, and the victim's shuddering is interpreted as a positive sign of the gods (cf. 254). With the Cheremis the orifices of the horse's body are closed at the killing so that the soul is kept inside (Meuli 259). This can be compared to the purification of the vital breaths (prāņa), i.e. the body orifices, of the victim by the sacrificer's wife; here the prāņas are identified with the waters, and thus the food of the gods goes to them alive (SB 3.8.2.4; cf. Schwab 110f.). While dismembering the animal the bones must be kept undamaged (Meuli 259).
The same is the case in the Vedic animal sacrifice and of course also in the asvamedha (Schwab 105); for the aśvamedha the earliest
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