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360
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
20. And as to the Lokamprinâ (space-filling bricks), supplying the place of muhurtas (hours), they are made the (means) of gaining the muhurtas, they are the counterpart of the muhurtas: there are ten thousand and eight hundred of them, for so many muhartas there are in the year. Of these, he lays down twenty-one in the Gârhapatya (altar), seventyeight in the Dhishnya-hearths, and the others in the Åhavaniya. So many, indeed, are the different) forms of the year : it is these that are here secured for him (Pragâpati, the Year), and are put on him.
21. Now, some wish to get this total amount in the Åhavaniya itself, arguing, “Those are different brick-built fire-altars: why should we here (in the Åhavaniya altar) take into account those laid down there in the Gârhapatya and Dhishnyas) ?' But let him not do so. There are, indeed, ten of these fire-altars he builds-eight Dhishnyas, the Åhavaniya and the Gårhapatya--whence they say, ' Agni is Virág (wide shining or ruling),' for the Virág (metre) consists of ten syllables : but, surely, all these (altars and hearths) are looked upon as only one, as Agni; for it is merely forms of him that they all are,-even as the days and nights, the half-moons, the months, and the seasons (are forms) of the year, so are they all forms of him (Agni).
22. And, assuredly, they who do this put those forms of his? outside of him, and produce confusion between the better and the worse; they make the peasantry equal and refractory to the nobility. Surely, on the Agnidhriya he places the variegated
1 Viz. of 10,800 Lokamprinâs. · Viz. the Gái hapatya and Dhishnya hearths.
