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xxii
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
form he created the gods who, on their part, became immortal by assuming the birdlike form-and apparently flying up to heaven, which would seem to imply that the Sacrificer himself is to fly up to heaven in form of the bird-shaped altar, there to become immortal. It is not, however, only with the Moon, amongst heavenly luminaries, that Pragàpati is identified, but also with the Sun; for the latter, as we have seen, is but one of the three forms of Agni, and the fire on the great altar is itself the Sun'; whilst the notion of the sun being fashioned like a bird flying through space is not an unfamiliar one to the poets of the Vedic age. More familiar, however, to the authors of the Brahmanas, as it is more in keeping with the mystic origin of Pragapati, is the identification of the latter, not with the solar orb itself, but with the man (purusha) in the sun, the real shedder of light and life. This gold man plays an important part in the speculations of the Agnirahasya?, where he is represented as identical with the man (purusha) in the (right) eye-the individualised Purusha, as it were ; whilst his counterpart in the Fire-altar is the solid gold man (purusha) laid down, below the centre of the first layer, on a gold plate, representing the sun, lying itself on the lotusleaf already referred to as the womb whence Agni springs. And this gold man in the altar, then, is no other than Agni-Pragâpati and the Sacrificer: above him-in the first, third, and fifth layers-lie the three naturally-perforated , bricks, representing the three worlds through which he will have to pass on his way to the fourth, invisible, world, the realm of immortal life. We thus meet here again with the hallowed, old name of the Lord of Being, only to be made use of for new mystic combinations.
As the personified totality of all being, Pragapati, however, not only represents the phenomena and aspects of space, but also those of time,-he is Father Time. But just as, in the material process of building up the Fire-altar, the infinite dimensions of space require to be reduced to or the Parasha; the latter being, on the contrary, imagined in the form of a gigantic man. I VI, 1, 2, 20; 3, 1, 13.
* X, 5, 2, 1 seqq.
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