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308
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
of eleven syllables, and the Trishtubh is a thunderbolt, and the Trishtubh means strength: it is thus by the thunderbolt, and by strength, that the Sacrificer from the very first drives off the fiends, the Rakshas, from the mouth of the sacrifice.
3. This is the womb of the Vedi, for it was from that womb that the gods begat the Vedi. And that (space of a) fathom which was (marked off), is the womb of the Gârhapatya', for it was from that womb that the gods begat the Gârhapatya; and from the Gârhapatya the Åhavaniya.
4. From the (western) end of the Vedi he measures off the Vedi 2 thirty-six steps long eastward, thirty (steps) broad behind, and twenty-four (steps broad) in front, that makes ninety. This, then, is the Vedi measuring ninety steps: thereon he lays out the sevenfold Fire-altar.
5. As to this they say, 'How does this sevenfold (Person, the fire-altar,) correspond to this Vedi (measuring ninety steps)?' Well, there are these
1 That is, the brick-built Gârhapatya of the Agnikayana on which the Ukhya Agni, having been carried about by the Sacrificer for a year, is transferred from the fire-pan (ukhâ), and from which afterwards the fire of the great altar is derived. This new Gârhapatya has been raised on the site of the old (square) Âhavanîya (the so-called 'sâlâdvârya' or hall-door fire), on which the fire in the pan, the Ukhya Agni, was kindled (esha âhavaniyo vakshyamânâyâs kayanamahâveder gârhapatyo bhavati; Sây.). The pan containing this fire was then placed half a fathom south of (the centre of) the old Âhavanîya, and hence so as to stand quite close to the brick-built Gârhapatya raised in its place, and forming a circle with a diameter of one fathom. Thus this 'space of a fathom' is here quite correctly referred to as the original source of the fires of the Agnikayana.
For the dimensions of the Mahavedi here referred to, see part ii, p. III seq.
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