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SATAPATHA-BRÂHMANA.
perous; but in the end he assuredly comes to naught, for the Asuras indeed came to naught.
18. Now that same truth, indeed, is this threefold lore! The gods said, 'Now that we have made up the sacrifice, let us spread out? this truth!'
19. They prepared the Initiation-offering. But the Asuras became aware of it, and said, 'Having made up the sacrifice, the gods are now spreading out that truth : come, let us fetch hither what was ours !' The Samishtayagus of that offering) was not yet performed, when they arrived : whence people offer no Samishtayagus 9 for that sacrifice. The gods, espying the Asuras, snatched up the sacrifice, and began doing something else. They (the Asuras) went away again, thinking, 'It is something else they are doing.'
20. When they had gone away, they (the gods) prepared the Opening-offering. But the Asuras
1 That is, the Veda, and hence the sacrificial ritual as the sole end for which the three collections of hymn-verses (rik), hymntunes (saman), and sacrificial formulas (yagus) were made.
* The verb 'tan,''to spread,' is the regular expression for the performing' of the sacrifice,-a figure of speech taken from the spreading out of a web, in which literal sense it has to be taken here
See III, 1, 3, 6, where the injunction is given that no Samishtayagus should be performed for the Dîkshanîyeshti, 'lest he who has put on the garment of initiation should reach the end of the sacrifice before its completion; for the Samishtayagus is the end of the sacrifice.' It should be remembered that the initiationoffering, however essential, is merely a preliminary ceremony of the Soma-sacrifice, at the end of which latter sacrifice nine Samishtayagus oblations are offered (IV, 4, 4, I seq.) instead of the single one offered at the ordinary haviryagña. The term signifies the formula (yagus) of the completed offering (samish/a).'
. Prof. Delbrück, Altind. Syntax, p. 429, makes this last clause part of the Asuras' speech or thoughts,— one thing they have undertaken to do, and another they are doing.' This can hardly be right.
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