Satapatha Bramhana Part 03

Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford

Page 37

SATAPATHA-BRÂHMANA.
Indra!' therewith he deposits it ;—pith means essence : it is the essence he thereby wins.
9. These, then, are five Vâgapeya cups he draws; for he who offers the Vâgapeya wins Pragâpati; and Pragàpati is the year, and there are five seasons in the year,-he thus wins Pragâpati : therefore he draws five Vågapeya cups.
10. He (the Adhvaryu) then draws seventeen (other) cups of Soma, and (the Neshtri) seventeen cups of Surà (spirituous liquor), for to Pragâ pati belong these two (saps of) plants, to wit the Soma and the Surâ ;-and of these two the Soma is truth, prosperity, light; and the Surâ untruth, misery, darkness : both these (saps of) plants he thereby wins; for he who offers the Vagapeya wins everything here, since he wins Pragâ pati, and Pragâ pati indeed is everything here.
11. Now as to why he draws seventeen cups of Soma ;-Pragapati is seventeenfold, Prągâpati is the sacrifice': as great as the sacrifice is, as great as is
· See 1, 5, 2, 17, where the principal formulas used in making oblations are computed as consisting together of seventeen syllables. Paak. Br. 18, 6 insists especially on the symbolic identity of Pragapati and the Vågapeya on the double ground that the Vâgapeya consists of seventeen stotras, and has for its characteristic mode of chanting the Saptadasa-stoma, or seventeen-versed hymn. That this is indeed so will appear from a glance at the chief chants. The Bahishpavamâna-stotra, which in the ordinary Agnish/oma is chanted in the trivrit-stoma, consisting of three triplets, or nine verses (see part ii, p. 310), is at the Vâgapeya made to consist of seventeen verses, by the insertion of eight verses (S.V. II, 180-82; 186-00) between the second and third triplets. Again, the Madhyandina-pavamâna, ordinarily chanted in fifteen verses (part ii, p. 333), here consists of seventeen, viz. II, 105–7 (sung twice in two tunes=six verses); II, 663 (one verse); II, 663-4 (sung as triplet, in two tunes=six verses); II, 665 (one verse); II, 821-23
Digitized by Google