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SATAPATHA-BRÂHMANA.
2. As to this, they say, 'For each foot of the sacrificial horse they offer an oblation ;'-—when he performs the Agnihotra in the evening and morning, he offers two oblations in the evening, and two in the morning—that makes four oblations: thusthe horse being four-footed—an oblation is offered for each of its feet.
3. As to this, they say, 'On the starting off of the horse he performs an offering '; for the moon, doubtless, is the same as King Soma, the food of the gods: when, during that night (of new moon), he does not appear either in the east or in the west, then he comes to this world, and starts for this world 2
4. Now, when he performs the New-moon sacrifice, he thereby performs the (same) offering (as) on the starting of that (horse), and when he performs the Full-moon sacrifice he slaughters the sacrificial horse itself, and, having slaughtered it, he presents it to the gods. The other (real) horsesacrifice they indeed perform (only) a year after (the starting offering), but this month (of the Full and New-moon sacrifice), revolving, makes up a year 3: thus the sacrificial horse comes to be slaughtered for him year after year.
1 According to Âsv. X, 6, 2 seqq., having chosen the horse to be sacrificed, he performs two ishtis, to Agni Mardhanvat and Pashan; whereupon he sets free the horse, and for a year performs three ishtis daily at the three pressings, viz. to Savitri Satyaprasava, Prasavitri, and Âsavitri.
• Or, he disappears in this world; the same verb (vi-vrit) being used for the disappearance as for the starting off of the horse when set free.
• The syntactic construction of the last two sentences is that frequently alluded to before, viz. that of parenthetic causal clauses,
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