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SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
Maruts. It is offered for the safety of creatures : hence it is offered to the Maruts.
15. Thereupon follows the oblation of curds (payasya). Now it is on milk that the creatures subsist, it was by means of milk that they were preserved: hence he now offers to them that by which they were preserved, and whereon they subsist; and the beings whom he creates by means of the foregoing offerings, subsist on that milk, on that oblation of curds.
16. Therein a union takes place: the curdled milk (payasyâ, fem.) is female, and the whey is seed. From that union the infinite All was gradually generated; and since the infinite All was gradually generated from that union, therefore it (the offering of curds) belongs to the All-gods.
17. Then follows a cake on one potsherd for Heaven and Earth. Now when Pragàpati had created the living beings by those offerings, he enclosed them within heaven and earth; and so they are now enclosed within heaven and earth. And in like manner he, who by means of those oblations creates living beings, thereby encloses them within heaven and earth : this is why there is a cake on one potsherd for Heaven and Earth.
18. Now as to the course of proceeding. They do not raise an uttara-vedi' in order that it (the sacred work) may be unobstructed, that it may be entire, that it may be (worthy) of the All-gods.— The barhis is tied up in three (bunches), and then
1 The uttara-vedi, or northern (or upper) altar, is not required at the performance of the Vaisvadeva, but at that of the Varunapraghâsâh; see II, 5, 2, 5 seq.
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