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INTRODUCTION.
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Satra describes the rites recurring at each sacrifice, and then remarks: 'This ritual holds good, whenever a sacrifice is offered l.' Similarly Åsvalâyana, in one of the first chapters of his work, enumerates the rites which are to be performed
whenever he intends to sacrifice?' Other texts give a general description of the Grihya sacrifice by exemplifying it by one special sacrifice. Sankhayana 8 chooses for this the sacrifice which the bridegroom has to offer, when a favourable answer has been granted to his wooing ; Gobhila* gives at least the greater part of the rules in question à propos of the full moon and of the new moon sacrifice; Hiranyakesin", who opens his account at the period of the studentship of the young Brahmana, describes the sacrificial type à propos of the Upanayana rite.
The sacrifices which are to be offered daily at morning and at evening, those which are celebrated monthly on the days of the new moon and of the full moon—the Grihya copies of the Agnihotra and of the Darsapurnamasa sacrifices-and, thirdly, the daily distribution of the Bali offerings: these ceremonies are commonly described along with what we have called the first great group of the Grihya acts, immediately preceding or following the Vivaha.
We find, as a second group of sacred acts, a series of celebrations, which, if the man has founded his household, are to be performed regularly at certain times of the year at the household fire. So the Sravana sacrifice, which is offered to the snakes at the time when, on account of the danger from snakes, a raised couch is necessary at night. At the end of this period the festival of the redescent is celebrated : the exchanging of the high couch for the low couch on the ground. Between these two festivals comes the Prishậtaka offering on the full-moon day of the month Asvayuga; it receives in the Grihya texts the place corresponding to that which actually belongs to
11, 1, 5: esha eva vidhir yatra kvakid dhomak. * 1, 3, 1: atha khalı yatra kva ka hoshyant syât, &c. . 1, 7-10.
. I, 6 seqq.
» 1,1.
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