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INTRODUCTION.
THE present volume completes the exposition of the Agnikayana, or construction of the sacred Fire-altar. Whilst to the general reader the section of the Brâhmana treating of this ceremony, and extending over no less than five of its fourteen kändas-or rather more than one-third of the whole—will probably appear the least inviting part of the work, a special interest attaches to this ceremony, and the dogmatic explanation of its details, for the student of Indian antiquity. The complicated ritual of the Firealtar, as has been pointed out before ", does not seem to have formed part of the original sacrificial system, but was probably developed independently of it, and incorporated with it at a comparatively recent period. There seems, indeed, some reason to believe that it was elaborated with a definite object in view, viz. that of making the external rites and ceremonies of the sacrificial cult the practical devotional expression of certain dominant speculative theories of the time. As a matter of fact, the dogmatic exposition of no other part of the sacrificial ceremonial reflects so fully and so faithfully as that of the Agnikayana those cosmogonic and theosophic theories which form a characteristic feature of the Brahmana period. In the present work, that section commences with a cosmogonic account so elaborate as is hardly to be met with anywhere else in the Bråhmana literature; and throughout the course of performance the symbolic import of its details is
See part i, introduction, p. xxxi.
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