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206
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
offers the oblations,oblations are the flesh, and the flesh sits (lies), so to speak. The logs are inside (the fire), and the oblations outside, for the bones are inside, and the flesh is outside.
47. Now, then, as to the (mystic) correspondence (or, amount). Six he offers before the leading forward of the fire), and six afterwards; with six (formulas) they proceed up to the variegated stone; with two he lays down the variegated stone; with four they proceed as far as the fire-altar; with five they mount the fire-altar: that makes twentynine, and the oblation itself is the thirtieth. With two (verses) he deposits the fire,—that makes thirty-two, and of thirty-two syllables consists the Anushtubh : such, then, is this Anushtubh.
48. And this one (Anushtubh) they bring hither from those three Anushtubhs which they make up on the Gârhapatya'; and inasmuch as they bring this (therefrom) hither, thereby this whole Agni (fire-altar) becomes completed. But now he was not yet fit to eat food a.
49. He said to Agnis, ‘By thee I will eat food!'So be it!' Hence it is only when they bring him hither, that this (kityâgni) becomes fit to eat food, to eat oblations.
50. Moreover, they say, 'It is Pragâpati himself who takes this (Agni) as his dear son to his bosom;? and verily, whosoever so knows this, takes thus a dear son to his bosom.
* See VII, 1, 2, 16-19. · Literally, he was not equal thereto that he should eat food.
· That is, the Kityâgni (fire-altar) said to the Agni (fire) about to be led forward.
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