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386
SATAPATHA-BRÂHMANA.
food also means living beings (progeny), since it is by food that they exist : by resorting to the breasts of those who have milk, they continue to exist. And those who have no milk are nursed by the former as soon as they are born ; and thus they exist by means of food, and hence food means progeny.
7. He who is desirous of offspring, sacrifices with that oblation, and thereby makes himself the sacrifice, which is Pragâ pati?.
8. In the first place there is a cake for Agni on eight potsherds. Agni indeed is the root, the progenitor of the deities; he is Pragâpati ('lord of creatures'): hence there is a cake for Agni.
9. Then follows a potful of boiled rice (karu) for Soma. Soma doubtless is seed, and that in Agni, the progenitor; he (Agni) casts the seed Soma : thus there is at the outset a productive union.
10. Then follows a cake on twelve or eight potsherds 3 for Savitri. Savitri indeed is the impeller (pra-savitri) of the gods; he is Pragâ pati, the intermediate progenitor : hence the cake to Savitri.
II. Then follows a potful of boiled rice for Sarasvatt; and another for Pushan. Sarasvati doubtless is a woman, and Påshan is a man: thus there is again a productive union. Through that twofold productive union Pragâpati created the living beings,
??Or, Pragâpati, the real, the existent, 'Pragậpatim bhūtam.'
. Instead of the preliminary Anvârambhanîyâ-ishi (see p. 7), a special ishti may be performed on this occasion, with a cake on twelve potsherds to Agni Vaisvanara, and a potful of boiled rice (karu) to Parganya, for oblations. Kâty. V, 1, 2-4.
s According to Taitt. S. I, 8, 2, it is one on twelve potsherds. • Madhyatah, lit. from the middle.'
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