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III ADHYÂYA, 13 KHANDA, 4.
103
udder is (Soma) Pavamâna ; .... are the months and half-months. Adoration to thee, O glad-faced one! Svâhâ !'
KHANDA 13. 1. At the middle (Ashtaka) and in the middle of the rainy season,
2. The four Mahâvyâhritis (and) the four (verses), They who have thirsted' (Rig-veda X, 15, 9 seq.): having quickly recited (these verses) he shall sacrifice the omentum ;
3. Or (he shall do so) with the verse, 'Carry the omentum, Gâtavedas, to the Manes, where thou knowest them in the world of virtue. May streams of fat flow to them; may the wishes of the sacrificer be fulfilled. Svâhâ !'
4. (Then follow) the four Mahâvyâhritis (and) the four (verses), “They who have thirsted' (see Sätra 2): (thus is offered) an eightfold oblation of cooked food, together with the cut-off portions.
indicated the limb of the Ashtaka's body identified with the months and half-months.
13, 1. On madhyâvarsha, comp. Weber, loc. cit., pp. 331, 337. Narayana understands not in the middle of the rainy season,' but in the middle of the year' (see his note, p. 146 of the German edition). I cannot help thinking that the word madhyavarshe, given by the MSS. here and in Pâraskara III, 3, 13, and explained by Nârâyana, is a corrupt reading which we should correct into maghyavarshe (the festival celebrated during the rainy season under the Nakshatra Maghâs'), or something like that. The MSS. of Âsvalâyana-Grıhya II, 5, 9 have mâghyâvarsham, mâghavarsham, mâdhyâvarsham. Vishnu (LXXVI, 1, comp. LXXVIII, 52, and Professor Jolly's note, Sacred Books of the East, VII, p. 240) mentions the three Ashtakâs, the three Anvashtakas, a Magha day which falls on the thirteenth of the dark half of the month Praushthapada. Comp. Manu III, 273, varshâsu ka maghâsu ka ; Yâgñavalkya I, 260.
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