B. SACRIFICE
Yajna
This sacrifice is the navel of the world.
RV I, 164, 35128
All power to our life through sacrifice!
All power to our lungs through sacrifice!
All power to our eyes through sacrifice!
All power to our ears through sacrifice!
All power to our backs through sacrifice!
All power to Sacrifice through sacrifice!
YV IX, 21
All this, whatever exists, is made to share in sacrifice.
SB III, 6, 2, 26
Sacrifice is a reliable ferry.
AB I, 13 (III, 2, 29)
The boat which father and son use for
transport undergoes no damage.
Now sacrifice is the boat of the Gods.
JAIM B I, 165
One indeed is the sacrifice!
JAIM B II, 70
If one had to choose a single word to express the quintessence of the Vedic Revelation, the word yajna, sacrifice, would perhaps be the most adequate. Sacrifice is, in fact, an ancient, far-reaching, and pervasive intuition of the shruti. The conception of sacrifice, certainly, varied through the ages, and the term itself has received differing connotations, but the underlying intuition and its centrality have remained. The basic characteristic of yajna seems to be that of an action that reaches where it intends to reach, that really and truly offers something, that stretches out and extends itself. In other words, sacrifice seems to suggest an action that effectively "creates", that is, it acts, is efficient, and produces what it intends. Or, again, sacrifice is the transitive act par excellence, the projecting act, the action that links directly the acting and its results in one and the same event. It is not something that, once done, remains suspended, as it were, independent from the act, but an action that forms part of the acting itself. The proper sphere of sacrifice is the sphere of communication, and communication constitutes the very structure of the universe. All this, of course, sounds inconveniently abstract, so it may become more intelligible if we proceed to describe the main themes related to sacrifice.
The conception of sacrifice found in the Vedas arises out of one of the two fundamental world views adopted by the human mind as it approaches the mystery of reality and seeks to discover therein the place of Man, that is, his human vocation. We could try to formulate this basic alternative in the following way. An early and universal human experience is the experience of the fact of change in the world or, in a word, that there is a becoming. Now, "becoming" can be understood in two ways: as a "coming from be(ing)" or as a "coming to be(ing)."
There is a trend within human thinking which leads to the assumption that nothing can come to be unless, somewhere and somehow, it already "is;" that nothing can be-come if it does not come from a Be, from a Being; that all that happens is potentially already there. This hypothesis assumes that there is a sort of infinite reservoir of possibilities, an infinite Being, a God, a Ground, ultimately responsible for all that is, for all change, for all becoming. The terms Immutability, Being, God, Creator, Ground, Origin, Substance, Essence, and a score of other notions convey this world view, and philosophies both inside and outside India have developed it to the highest degrees of subtlety and "depth." In the beginning was Fullness, and from this Fullness everything came, that is, be-came, and to it everything will return.
Another human option follows the second part of the alternative. Becoming is here not a coming-to-be from a Be, from a Being: change is not evolution, that is, a development or unfolding from what was already there, though undeveloped, folded, unstretched. On the contrary, becoming is a coming into be, into being. Being is simply such because it is be-ing, because it has come to be. Let us not hastily jump to the conclusion that here Nonbeing has the primacy,129 but let us rather dwell particularly on the intuition here expressed that Nonbeing "is" not and thus cannot be handled as if it were negative Being. To affirm that there is nonbeing, that there is "not-is," is a contradiction in terms. The main reason for rejecting such an approach, however, arises from the notion of sacrifice as the primordial act, as Act, as the act that makes beings to be and is thus responsible for their becoming, without the assumption of a prior Being from which they come. In the beginning "was" Sacrifice. In the beginning "was" neither Being nor Nonbeing,130 neither Fullness nor Void. We cannot properly say that at the beginning there was Sacrifice, because neither say nor was has any meaning before there were Being and Word; and yet this would be the least inappropriate way of expressing this intuition. It is here that sacrifice finds its proper focus. It is the Prajapati-sacrifice, in mythical terms, which gives birth to Being, as well as to beings, and which releases Being of the burden of having to be the origin and the cause of beings.131
At the origin of every being there is a sacrifice that has produced it. The texture of the universe is sacrifice, which is the act par excellence which produces all that is. Now this primordial act of sacrifice is a pure act devoid of any ontic or ontological attribute, positive or negative: it "is" neither being nor nonbeing. It "is" an act of which we can be aware only in the action itself and in connection with the "actor" or the "acted," though as innumerable texts emphasize we should distinguish, but not separate, four "moments": the act, the action, the actor, and the acted (kriya, karman, kartr, karya). The act is the sacrifice proper, the action is its inherent result, the actor is the agent (which is nothing other than the act acting), and the acted is another aspect of the action, namely, the concrete result of the act. We may distinguish, then, act (actor) and action (acted), but all is summed up in the single act, for the act as such includes everything else.
In the context of sacrifice this fundamental intuition is here not expressed in terms of being or nonbeing; it is not the dialectical approach that was developed in later periods. It is, however, the basis and the starting point of all Indo-European philosophizing. We may recall the two traditions that are to be found within most of the cultures of the world: the substantialist tradition and the functionalist, the one giving primacy to the stable and the other to the dynamic. It must be added that the Vedic intuition cannot be said to incline toward one and only one of these two philosophical views, for the paradoxical and enriching fact is that the dynamic or Heraclitean tone of the first Vedas is followed by the static or Parmenidean tone of the Upanishadic period. Or, to put it in a rather untraditional way, the first Vedas, prior to the Upanishadic interpretation of them, include the seed of both the classical Hindu and the classical Buddhist conceptions.
We must recall, once again, that the Vedic Revelation opens up reality not by means of concepts or, generally, by the telling of myths, but by means of symbols. We need to be aware of symbols in order to enter into communion with reality. A concept relates to logical intelligibility and is expressed in the different notes or attributes that define a word. A symbol, when expressed in words, stands for all that the word reveals over and above the conceptual intelligibility, though the latter is not necessarily excluded. Moreover, a symbol allows for a much wider range of interpretations than does a concept. For this reason the interpretation of Vedic words as concepts, which then have to be reinterpreted allegorically and metaphorically, has led to the discrediting of this ancient wisdom, as if it were only a collection of phantasmagoria. The Vedas are neither a metaphysical system nor a metaphorical or allegorical document, and that is why a special method of approach to them is required, for here Philosophy and Poetry, Speculation and Art, Theory and Praxis, are as yet unseparated.
Next we may note that Vedic sacrifice, as we shall read in the chapters of this section, is undergirded by an important symbol. This symbol, having received one particular name at the beginning, goes underground, as it were, in the subsequent periods, but remains none the less active and effective, even though under different names. This symbol is rita. As its etymology suggests132 and as related words confirm,133 rita stands for that nonontological but nevertheless real principle of order and of activity. Rita is the very energy of the sacrifice; it is what triggers the sacrifice. We may remember that ardor, truth, and rita share an intimate relationship.134 Truth without rita would not be true.135 All the powers of ardor, concentration, energy, and the like are connected with rita. Indeed, the whole order of the universe comes from and is maintained by the dynamism of rita.
Rita is generally translated by "Cosmic Order," which is a valid translation provided one bears in mind that cosmic order is not a fixed physical or mathematical law, but a "sacrificial" order. In the words of the Rig Veda itself: cosmic order is maintained by sacrificial order; that is, rita is upheld by rita.136 It is through rita that Varuna governs the universe.137 Rita is the ultimate foundation of everything; it is "the supreme," although this is not to be understood in a static sense.138 Rita points to an original and universal factor prior to the cosmic and human scission between the father and mother principles.139 From rita comes the Firstborn (the Word?)140 in the whole ordering of reality, while in another place it is affirmed that this Firstborn is no less than Prajapati himself 141 or Agni142. Agni is closely related to rita.143 These and other utterances144 are both bewildering and plainly contradictory, if rita is understood as a "substance" or a "thing," if rita can be "pinpointed," separated from and made independent of the "beings" it informs. Rita is rather the "law" or universal order embodied in sacrifice. It is the expression of the primordial dynamism that is inherent in everything and also possesses its own internal coherence, a unifying force that could be said to be the very soul of sacrifice. This also explains why rita appears in the Rig Veda as being superior to and independent of the Gods, yet at the same time is their instrument. Rita is not a reservoir of energy upon which Gods or Men can draw for one purpose or another; rita as the principle of order is capable of growth, of expansion, of evolution out of itself: rita, in fact, can increase by means of rita.145 The order of things, be they nature, Men, or Gods, is certainly a real order, but it is not an immutable and static one; the order of reality depends ultimately on reality itself.
The moment that rita is converted into a concept and is given a consistency in itself it is bound to appear as something rigid, immutable: a fixed cosmic order like a mathematical law which does not tolerate exceptions, a strict regulation which does not tolerate deviations, a stern ordinance which does not allow for freedom and improvization. It does not so appear, however, in the first Veda, where as an adjective, for instance, it means right, proper, holy, true, and the like, all words that denote flexible adaptation rather than rigid immutability.
This feature of rita, defying all that can properly be either objectified or substantivized, comes more clearly into view when we realize its intimate connection with sacrifice and all other cultic activities. Rita is, in point of fact, the actual functioning or rather the proper rhythm of the sacrifice, while sacrifice is that which causes things to be what they are. By sacrifice Gods and Men collaborate, not only among themselves but also for the maintenance and very existence of the universe. Reality subsists, thanks to sacrifice. But this truly primordial sacrifice is not left to the whim of either Men or Gods; it has an internal structure and mode of operation, namely, rita. Without rita the Vedic sacrifice would degenerate into a manipulation of the whole cosmic order by Gods or Men, and we would fall into a hideous world of magic, as Men are sometimes prone to do.
We would venture to describe this paradoxical intuition in this way: the self-subsistency of reality harbors its own absolute contingency. It is not necessary that beings or even Being exist; nothing prevents a total relapse into utter nothingness; nothing guarantees that time will endure forever, or that the world will not one day destroy itself. This Vedic vision awakens us from the illusion of ontological self-complacency: the whole of reality can collapse and disappear. Man can destroy himself, the world can have an end, existence is not indestructible, and even Being is not bound to be as if it were obliged to be Being by a superior necessity. Nonbeing is not only a dialectical, but a real, possibility. The experience of nothingness, which implies the nothingness of the experience itself, is one of the deepest disclosures of the Vedic Revelation. The whole of reality "stands on its own feet;" that is, it does not lean on something or somebody else, but depends on, "hangs," from itself. It is, as it were, a divine contingency.
On the other hand, reality is not merely contingent: it does not simply depend on Another, that is, another reality, which in turn leans on something else. Nothing can destroy reality but itself. Nothing can challenge the existence of the universe, except the universe itself. There is no fear of any enemy, except the one that lurks inside us. In scholastic or theistic terms, God can destroy himself, if he so desires. In other words, the universe has the power to perpetuate itself, to be established in being, to exist, to overcome all threats and obstacles; but it has no eternal warrant. It has its own resources and from them it can pour forth eternal life. Moreover, this power is not a fiction; it is real and thus it can fail, it can be betrayed by reality itself.
Sacrifice is that which preserves the universe in existence, that which gives life and the hope of life. The universe in its totality does not repose on the shoulders of any extracosmic reality; if it did, it would not be the whole universe, but only an appendix to it. Reality has to include all that of which we can be aware. Neither God nor the Gods can be excluded from it. Now this universe is neither reposing on another Ground, nor reposing on itself, as if it were just a "mechanical" or "automatic" Being, as if freedom and thus the freedom to cease to be were not at the very core of reality. The universe does not repose on anything other than itself and its own structure. This ultimate structure is not to be regarded as "another" or "deeper" "thing" or substance; it is in fact sacrifice, which is, precisely, the internal dynamism of the universe, universal rita, cosmic order itself. This order, this sacrifice, obviously cannot be a static result of an already performed action. Sacrifice is the act that makes the universe. It does it, not through an external agent, but by the self-cooperation of the universe itself. Men alone cannot accomplish this, and the Gods left to themselves are equally impotent. The highest God, the supreme Being, is equally incapable of performing this act alone, for he is not God for himself but for the "creatures." In point of fact he is never alone; he is relational and belongs to reality, in spite of all the provisos and distinctions that a thinking philosophical and theological mind is bound to make in order not to fall into an oversimplified monism or an unsustainable dualism.
To perform the sacrifice is not to participate in a good act or to do good to the Gods, to mankind, or to oneself: it is to live, to "make" one's own survival and that of the whole universe. It is the act by which the universe itself continues in existence. An analysis of the different texts would help us to discover a double stage and a double team of agents in the unfolding of this sacrifice. The one stage is ayam lokah, this world of Men; the other is asau lokah, the world beyond, the place of the heavenly beings. Moreover, of the two "teams," one consists of Men and the other of Gods and asuras. The cosmic liturgy that holds the world together and keeps it in existence is performed (1) by Men trying to ascend to the world of the Gods to celebrate the sacrifice there; (2) by the Gods responding to the call of Men and celebrating the sacrifice here on earth; (3) by Men performing it here also; and finally (4) by the Gods celebrating this life-giving sacrifice in heaven. A meditation on the texts will lead us to discover this fourfold conception.
If sacrifice is the ultimate and supreme principle, superior, thus, to the Gods and derived from God but not separable from either, it is understandable that some of the texts may sound magical to those who can accept only anthropomorphic world views. If the notion that God acts is not considered magic, the fact that sacrifice is efficacious cannot be said to be magical either. It would certainly be so if it did not constitute the ultimate structure of reality; but it is constantly taught in the Vedas down to the Upanishads, and it is repeated subsequently in philosophical works, that sacred science consists in the knowledge of sacrifice and that sacrifice is the ultimate principle. The deterioration of this world view begins when sacrifice is interpreted in a substantialized way, that is, when it is reified and thus permits the introduction of magical interpretations.
From this perspective of the primacy of sacrifice, the whole world appears new every moment and its path unpredictable. It will all depend on the sacrifice, on how the creative act is going to happen. This is a realm of true freedom, but it involves also the risk of misuse. That which allows for freedom may also allow for exploitation by those who understand the labyrinth of sacrifice. It is no wonder that the theory of karman appeared after a short time as an urgent corrective to a world view risking dependence only on whim and on the mere performance of rituals.
Before closing this introduction we should mention a general feature of sacrifice which appears in its post-Vedic development, whereby it is viewed under a more personalistic perspective. The proper name for this is perhaps puja, worship, rather than yajna, sacrifice.
Even when Man's worship has lost sight of the overall perspective just described, worship is still considered as a human activity by which Man attains the fulfillment of his being, not so much in the sense that our being is thereby enhanced or expanded as in the sense that it is only in worship that we fully are. Worship enables us to overcome the obstacles that obstruct the realization of being. Worship is not only a profoundly meaningful spiritual attitude; it is also an action in which Man's whole being is involved and through which Man realizes his "self."
In the performance of worship Man always endeavors to transcend time, to free himself from time. By this liberation he enters into the sphere of ultimate Reality. Liberation, moksha, is absolute freedom, it is an escape from subjection to time.146 Worship permeates the whole of human life; it is both a means and an end, a means leading to final perfection, and an end, that is to say, perfection itself.
Creation is God's sacrifice, for not only does God bring it into existence, create it, but he also permits it to return to him again. He has in fact decreed its return. Now, to recognize an existence that restores itself by its own act is to invest it with immortality. Sacrifical acts, then, perform the function of finalizing this sort of exchange. Worship is the way to immortality.
Worship does not consist solely in prayer or feeling or knowledge; it is action, an action by which duality is transcended and dissimilarity banished. This act contains within itself, essentially, a sacrificial aspect, a death and a becoming, a doing, karman. This word, which in the course of time will take on numerous other meanings, has here the significance of "action," understood as the act of worship and sacrifice. Action that does not include an element of making and remaking (creation and redemption) does not deserve the name. By worship salvation is rendered attainable and worship must needs entail sacrifice, for only sacrifice can produce the essential conversion. There is no other way to salvation except through sacrifice, for salvation is not attainable except by means of a break, a leap onto the other shore, or some sort of transference into a supranatural order. Man can be saved only by the performance of sacrificial worship; apart from such worship he is powerless, at the mercy of blind forces.
We must stress at this point the sacrificial element implied within the concept of karman and not load it with ideas of morality which it does not primarily contain.147 The tendency to equate religion and morality, to see in karman a simple chalking-up of merits and demerits according to good or evil conduct, is secondary to authentic religiousness. For the Vedic Experience, religion is essentially worship and worship means a dynamic ontological two-way relationship of Man with the divine. Karman implies action, not only in its etymological but also in its intrinsic meaning, and, what is more, it implies an act of worship that is identified with sacrifice. Karma-marga is a way of sacrifice and of worship.
Yajne jate
14 Cosmogony is liturgy and liturgy is cosmogony: thus we might sum up the main intuition of this text, which at the same time formulates one of the deepest convictions of the Vedic world view. The world owes its origin to a divine sacrifice and, thanks to the same sacrifice, it continues to be. If the first act is divine, the second is human. We have here a cosmotheandric action for which an appropriate symbol is the loom, connected with the human activity by which Man creates his own patterns and makes his own clothing.
In fact every liturgy has always been and still is a remaking of the world, a reenactment of the creative act by which the world comes into being. This "making of the world" can, however, be understood not only as a cosmological cosmogony but also as a historical or even a sociological one. Modern liturgy tends in fact to be the coming together of people in order to reshape the environment, social, cultural, political ecological, and artistic.
Throughout the hymn there is an interplay between two ideas and sets of actions, weaving and sacrifice, the latter actions mirroring or rather reenacting the creational acts of the former. The meaning of this hymn becomes clearer when we remember parallel texts that speak of two maidens, symbolizing day and night, dancing in circles and endlessly weaving the stuff of the world, spreading all the colors of reality over the six regions of the universe.148 This world-building action is not left, however, to cosmic forces alone; Men and the ancestors, or "Fathers," are also involved in the task of weaving the fabric and spinning the threads. The rituals are the threads, the hymns the shuttles, the weavers the ancestral sacrifices. As the cloth has its design, so the sacrificial texts have their meters. One Upanishad says149 that the Gods were afraid of death and that each one covered himself with his respective meter for protection. The origin of this conception is to be found in the text given here, where each God has his own meter in which he is praised and which gives him strength. The power of poetry is such that the poets sometimes wonder whether it is the Gods who inspire their song or their poetry that gives life to the Gods. But the text also says (v. 5) that the human poets follow the already existing relationship, discovering divine power in every meter. A male figure, the puman, which appears here is related to the purusha, the primordial Man, of our previous texts.150
RV X, 130
Brahmayajna
15 We recall from the preceding hymn that sacrifice is envisaged as a universal fabric reaching everywhere; or rather, sacrifice is seen as the creative act of weaving that cosmic fabric in which everything has its place and receives its meaning. It is by means of this primordial act that the Gods are able to reenact that action through which Reality is. The original dharmas, that is, the original structures of reality (or the primordial rites, statutes, ordinances) are thus prescribing what is mentioned in the first verse of the first hymn following and is repeated in several other places: a sacrifice to the Sacrifice by means of the sacrifice. To "offer" means to "stretch" and by this very fact to "reach" reality by means of performing the act by which reality is.
If we do not freeze reality into a form of static being, but consider it rather as the act acting, with the Gods as the first agents of the sacrifice, we may understand the stanzas of the hymn. The sacrifice is not a ready-made act, over and done with. It is, on the contrary, the act by which the world is, and thus this act comes to be, it becomes manifest, it is born and grows again and again. It becomes the ultimate criterion, the ruler, the highest instance: the overlord of even the Gods.
The third verse calls Men to partake in the divine banquet, in the feast of the Gods, in the authentic form of existence. The Gods are our forerunners and we pray that we may follow them and be allowed a place with them in the sphere of authentic existence: the parama vyoman. It is a place in which human life is unrestricted: we may experience this new and real dimension of our being while still continuing in our earthly life, while seeing the rising of the sun with our own personal eyes, now no longer limited, of course, to sensorial perception. In the parama vyoman human life is elevated to the life of the Gods. Vyoman is the realm of freedom from limitations. The rising of the sun corresponds also to the ascent of Man to that supreme stage.
The Gods have no existence of their own; they exist in, with, above, and also for Men. Their supreme sacrifice is Man, the primordial Man, whom we have already met in other hymns. It is overwhelming, this experience of being Man: Man is the most important and central creature in the universe but he is also the most miserable, the most suffering, and often even the most despicable. Human life is the most precious thing and at the same time the most lavishly wasted. Man is the sacrificer, but also the sacrificed; the Gods, in their role as the primal agents of sacrifice, offer their oblation with Man. Man is not only the cosmic priest; he is also the cosmic victim. Human history, we may venture to translate, is the most blatant example and confirmation of the truth that Man is both sacrificer and sacrifice. To say that the history of human existence on earth has a meaning amounts to declaring that the Gods performed their sacrifice with Man as their oblation. The last two verses, however, give us a glimpse of an intuition that the coming cosmic liturgy will no longer be the exploitation of Men by Men, or the religious sanction of it, but a new hymn, a new song, whose melody the Gods themselves will have to learn from Men, once the latter have invented it.151
The second text places the sacrifice in its true perspective: even if Brahman here is not the "absolute world ground" of the later philosophical sense, it is on the way to becoming so. The reciprocal definition of Brahman and sacrifice in the second verse illumines the meaning of both: Brahman is the sacrifice and all its elements precisely because it is the inner reality (or essence: sattva) of the sacrifice and also that ineffable power that makes the priests' sacrifice a real sacrifice. The text makes it quite clear that the different kinds of priests are merely instruments in the realization of the sacrifice and that as such they are praiseworthy. Yet a consciousness of the unity that exists among all the parts and elements of the sacrifice, and an awareness of the underlying reality of Brahman, are already beginning to pervade the performance and the understanding of the sacrifice itself.
AV VII, 5
AV XIX, 42, 1-2
Agnihotra
16 Without light there is no life. We have already seen the central place and importance of light. But light is not an abstract reality; light is Sun and Fire. The Kaushitaki Brahmana says that
The sacrifice is the agnihotra. Continuity is thus established, the circle is completed, harmony is preserved.
The Sunlight of the day not only gives way to the light of the night, the Fire, but in a sense gives birth to it, by reason of a certain cosmic solidarity in which Man too has his part to play. This is the function of the agnihotra. All other sacrifices and rites can be neglected, but not the agnihotra, for it is the quintessence of sacrifice153 and through it one becomes immortal.154 "The agnihotra is the ultimate [parama] foundation of everything."155 One can then understand the text of the Shatapatha Brahmana which says that if the priest did not perform the agnihotra in the morning, that day the sun would not rise.156 This, as we see from the central thrust of the whole shruti, is certainly not owing to some mysterious magical connection between the agnihotra and the sun, but to the theanthropocosmic link that maintains the whole of reality in truth and order, for Man is not simply a spectator in the cosmic display or an outsider set there just to exploit the earth for his own benefit.
The agnihotra represents the simplest possible form of the whole Vedic conception of sacrifice. Any householder, provided he is properly initiated, may perform the sacrifice in the evening and morning of every day and recite the prayers, some of which are given here along with other texts on the same agnihotra. The two temporal moments, in which this sacrifice has to be performed, are important: they are samdhya, the "holding together," the junction of Agni and Surya, the brief periods when the two lights meet, when one can distinguish no longer the one from the other, when Man can intervene as a part of the cosmos without disturbing the rhythm of the sun and the stars. In the morning the human heart is ready for life, while at sunset it is inclined to pour out its innermost feelings. Practically all religions of the world have considered these hours to be holy; these are the times even nowadays when the modern city dweller starts the new day with enthusiasm and hope, or longs at its decline for a friend, for love, for relaxation, for Soma.157
It is not necessary to describe the rite of the agnihotra. Suffice it to say that besides the sun, time, and the light and thus also space a minimum of three fires and three persons, some milk, and, when possible, the cow that has given the milk are required: a complete microcosm.
RV V, 15, 1-2
RV X, 80, 4
RV X, 100, 6
YV III, 9; 11; 20-21; 25-26; 38
SB II, 3, 1, 13
SB VII, 3, 1, 34
Soma pavamana
17 The sacrifice of the Soma-juice, to which all the Vedas so frequently allude, is one of the major Vedic sacrifices.
All the one hundred and fourteen hymns of Book IX of the Rig Veda are dedicated to Soma, as are also certain hymns of the other books.158 The importance of Soma derives from the fact that its sacrifice is an act in which the divine and the human both take part. Soma is, properly speaking, the drink of the soma-plant which allows Men to feel that they are more than just conscious animals. Thus they are given the elixir of immortality and at the same time are permitted to share in some divine form of consciousness.
The soma-plant has been identified with a brown or reddish bush some three feet high.159 The golden hue of its juice inspires poets to acclaim tirelessly the "radiance" of this divinity and his close connection with the Sun. He creates light and scatters darkness. Nevertheless the plant should also be understood in a concrete physiological way. The action of Soma has a stimulating and inspiring effect which is something more than comfort or strength, though less than intoxication or drunkenness.160
The process of extracting the juice from the soma-plant is described minutely with endless variations of ritual. The poets chant their hymns at that moment when Soma leaps forth from the press. The woolen strainer stands for heaven, the juice in liquid form is the rain; thus Soma is called Lord of the Rivers and son of Water. Elsewhere he is "a bull," and his descent into the milky water of the vat is likened to the insemination of a herd of cows. Thus the whole cosmos is involved in this very simple act of the extraction of the soma-juice.
The earthly origin of Soma is said to be in the mountains, on Mount Mujavat,161 but the mountains in general are also alleged to be his birthplace.162 His true origin, however, is in heaven: "child of heaven,"163 "milk of heaven."164 He was brought to earth by an eagle who snatched him from the Castle of Brass where the Gandharvas were guarding him.165 In the Brahmanas it is Gayatri (a name for Agni) who steals Soma. As the most important of all plants he is given the title of Lord of Plants.
Soma is the vehicle of immortality. Soma "is" immortality.166 Immortality is acquired by the drinking of Soma and not by abstaining from the fruits of the earth. The way to immortality is not one of escape from the material world, but rather one of assimilating earthly realities. Soma has the power of rendering both Gods and Men immortal. "We have drunk Soma, we have become immortal, we have entered into light, we have known the Gods," says our text (v. 3). Immortality is not the birthright of any being; it has to be acquired, conquered, merited, given.
The most frequent epithet of Soma is pavamana, the "flowing clear," which suggests both that the juice is purified in its elaborate processing and that it purifies by its effects.167 Soma possesses healing powers: "The blind man sees, the cripple walks."168 He also stimulates speech and evokes sublime thoughts. He is a poet, the "soul" of the sacrifice, a sage; his wisdom is often acclaimed and he is the giver of all blessings.
In several of the late hymns of the Rig Veda, as also in the Atharva Veda, Soma is identified with the moon. Soma is luminous, is magnified in water, and is termed a globule.170
Hymn VIII, 48, is a chant of praise to Soma, God of immortality. The poet prays for the divine strength that mortal Men are powerless to resist, for protection against all evil, for light and wealth, for a long life.
Soma is here, as in some other places, addressed as indu, "Drop," a word that came to be used also with reference to the moon, probably owing to its connection with Soma, a brilliant drop, a plant to be collected during full-moon night. We have already seen that the waters are a symbol of life and that food is also a life-bringer. Now Soma, as a liquid, as a drop, is considered to be the drop of life, a drink that bestows health, both temporal and eternal. Without venturing any hypothesis regarding the actual Vedic use of Soma as a hallucinogenic potion, we may note the close connection between exciting material substances and religious life. Obviously there are negative factors in these practices, but there are also positive elements, for they demand an attitude that is life-affirming and accepts the importance of matter. Soma is praised, not as a way of escape from the normal human condition, but as a means of facing it more squarely. Second, the exciting effect of Soma tends to activate human potentialities, not to put them to sleep. Third, Soma, elevating the worshiper to a higher plane of human consciousness, claims to enhance his daily living and to help him to live with the awareness of a deeper dimension while he is carrying on his ordinary actions. These and similar ideas spring to mind as being involved in the old Vedic Soma sacrifice and its related rites in other cultures and religions, for the Soma sacrifice undoubtedly has connections with the haoma rites of Zoroastrianism and is viewed by some as having an inner relationship with the Eucharistic sacrifice.
The Soma spirituality (if we may use this expression) is an important characteristic of the Vedic Experience. We have already described it as being theandric. Both Men and Gods, that is, the human and the divine, are involved in the same adventure. Both must become immortal, both must coalesce. While the divinization of Men is a well-defined path, the humanization of the Gods is a mysterious process in which Soma is the link and sacrifice the means of attainment. The divinization of Man is not without repercussions on the Godhead, which in turn is humanized. Soma is the powerful symbol of this double and yet simple process.
This Soma spirituality is based on fullness and not on want. Many traditional religious forms seem to stress want, guilt, penance, asceticism, renunciation, and a flight from all corporal values and material pleasures and rightly so when Man lives in conditions of hardship and strain, as he all too often does. But there is more to human life. Soma spirituality stresses the opposite facet: Soma bestows and celebrates strength, courage, loquacity, and eloquence; he unleashes our thoughts so that, once blessed by Soma, they flow without inhibition. It is not only immortality that we acquire when we drink Soma; it is also joy, purification, and protection from all evil influences. It is Soma who instills in us the proper mood that enables us to perform the sacrifice with dignity and to face life with confidence. Soma is invariably a sacred drink, though it is not always drunk with accompanying rituals--a significant fact in view of the later development of the agnishtoma, especially when it involved multitudinous and complicated rubrics.
An interesting corroboration of this positive Soma spirituality is the meaning and use that the word somya acquires from the Upanishads onward: the drinker of Soma, the one who is worthy to be offered Soma, he who is related to or that which belongs to Soma, has come to mean gentle, dear, kind, auspicious, and has become a form of address for respectable persons, such as Brahmins. A respectable and excellent man is not from this point of view the ascetic in rags, but the "moon-shining" man, who, being satiated with Soma, is therefore radiant and kind, gentle and loving.
RV VIII, 48
Gravastotra
18 Among the objects used in the sacrifice and hence invested with sacredness are the stones between which the Soma stalks are pressed and crushed in order to extract the juice, the nectar of immortality. The pressing stones are made the subject of several hymns.171 Here the stones hewn from the mountainside are personified: they are dancers, oxen, racehorses, speakers, and so on; they are godlike, immune to disease and fatigue and death. They play so integral a part in the sacrifice that the sacrificer even prays to them, offering them his reverence and homage, begging them to unloose the inspired tongue of the Soma presser. Finally, they are asked respectfully or scornfully, according to some interpreters to revert to their purely mineral state of being simply stones. The sacred character of a thing, we note, resides always in its function and not in its substance. For example, the murtis, the idols worshiped during popular festivals, are afterwards often immersed in the rivers or simply laid aside.
The whole world is called upon to contribute to the sacrifice; not only Gods, Men, animals, and plants, but also the earth and its elements. These stones are generally called grava and in Soma rituals the priest recites this Rig Veda hymn as part of the prescribed stotra.
Mention is made of these stones in many prayers so as to stress the sacramental, that is, the spiritual-material, aspect of this central and specifically human act:
RV X, 94
Vanaspati
19 "With your apex you touch the heavens, with your middle portion you fill the air, with your foot you establish the earth," says one text of the Shatapatha Brahmana,173 referring to the poles of sacrifice and likening them to the thunderbolt which is an emblem of world conquest.
Among all the creatures engaged in the sacrifice perhaps none is more important or more full of symbolic power than the cosmic tree, the tree of life, the lord of the forest, the poles of the sacrifice. The poles are stakes cut from a particular tall tree and used to form the cross on which the victim will be impaled and sacrificed. By unction the sacrificial tree becomes a mediator between Men and Gods and the bringer of every spiritual and material treasure. This tree is at the center of the world and at the summit of the earth. From it flows grace from heaven, the branch of the tree having itself been sacrificed and having acquired by this very fact a new life, a second birth.
None of this is new to any student of religion nor is it unknown to the conscious members of a number of religions. Even modern Man preserves a sense of sacredness for the forest whose reserves and parks are often nowadays called sanctuaries. Modern literature still considers the forest a sacred place, and contemporary ecology imparts a new sense of sacredness to the "green belts" in both country and town. Moreover, objects made of wood evoke an altogether different warmth of emotion than do those made of steel, plastic, or other material.
We have already alluded to the cosmic tree, sheltering the Gods in its branches,174 "spreading on the surface of the earth,"175 and providing lodging for the whole of reality, including Nonbeing.176 There is a connection between the image of the world-encompassing cosmic tree and the sun, which also embraces the entire universe. For this reason, perhaps, in the Rig Veda the cosmic tree is an inverted tree, with branches below and roots above, because the sun directs his beams down toward the earth and keeps his roots up in heaven.177 This tree in the Upanishads symbolizes Life,178 God,179 and the primordial Man;180 its branches are space, wind, fire, water, earth, and so on in fact, the whole of the universe.181 As a tree in the forest, so is Man.182 The Bhagavad Gita sums it up again by combining all these motifs.183
Against this background the hymn we quote acquires a wider significance. It not only refers to the ritual of preparing the special branches for the performance of the sacrifice, that is, the blessing of them as utensils for the rite, but it also incorporates references to the cosmic sacrifice, the offering of the entire cosmos in order that it may have new life, be born again. The hymn seems to address itself sometimes to Vanaspati, the Lord of the forest, and sometimes to yupa, the branches that form the poles of the sacrifice.
RV III, 8
Ashvamedha
20 The horse sacrifice, or ashvamedha, is the "king of the rites"184 and the rite of kings.185 It is the royal sacrifice offered by a victorious king. It is the most solemn and impressive cultic celebration of the Vedas and at the same time it is one of the most secular and political. The priestly role is not here so prominent as in most of the other sacrifices. Though its actual duration is only three days, preparations for the rite take long months or even, according to the prescriptions, up to one year or sometimes two, with yet another year to conclude the ritual.
At the moment of sacrifice the royal court, including the queen who has an important role to play at a certain moment,186 is assembled together with the entire population. At the start Soma-juice is offered and then, after many ritual acts, the horse is immolated with solemnity. Numerous other animals are also led to the appointed spot and certain ones are offered in sacrifice. After the sacrifice of the horse has been performed the prescribed procedure demands the sacrifice of a number of cows, followed by the distribution of honoraria and other gifts to the priests.187
Today we are perhaps in a better position to understand the nature of this sacrifice, which has been the subject of much debate among scholars. Without taking part in the discussion we may see in this sacrifice the final, minutely detailed elaboration of a long process in which pre-Vedic elements, fertility rites, cosmogonic references, social motives, political factors, and priestly interests all play a part, together producing a highly elaborate and no doubt impressive ritual. In spite of its complicated, soon outmoded, and at times degraded ritual, the overall impression created by this rite, encompassing as it does the whole of the universe, is undeniably splendid. It is often called the Great Sacrifice, mahakratu, the great display of force and power. It blots out all sins, fulfills all wishes, answers prayers for a son, and also, at a deeper level, fulfills or perfects Prajapati and identifies with him the one who is offering the sacrifice.
The Rig Veda has two hymns dedicated to the sacrifice of the horse. Whereas the hymn preceding our text has a more ritual character,188 Rig Veda I, 163, does not set out to describe the ashvamedha rite; it is a cosmogonic hymn in which the horse of the ashvamedha is homologized in a grandiose fashion with the sun and with a primordial cosmic horse that represents the entire universe.189 In this hymn are to be found both metaphorical and factual allusions, metaphorical with reference to the sun (e.g., this horse is a primordial horse) and factual with reference to the actual sacrifice. Thus verses 1 and 2 refer to the sun in the heavenly "ocean;" verse 5 speaks of a magnificent champion racehorse, while simultaneously referring to the perfect performance of the sacrificial rites over which the said horse presides. In verse 6 the horse in its earthly course is identified with the Sun in its heavenly course. Verse 8 brings us back to the ashvamedha, to that moment when the horse moves majestically onto the sacrificial parade ground.
Verse 9 describes certain features of the horse's appearance, while referring once again to the Sun. In verse 12 the horse arrives amidst due solemnity upon the place of sacrifice, followed by other animals, by poets, singers, and priests. The hymn concludes with a prayer uttered by the officiating priest to the horse which has now been offered in sacrifice.
Throughout the Indo-European world the horse has occupied a rather special position and has been considered a powerful symbol both of the human psyche and of the universe, the link between the two being perhaps the connection of the horse with the waters, and in the ashvamedha, significantly enough, the horse is immolated by suffocation. The Vedic contribution in this regard is to stress the horse's cosmic and universal character, in contrast with the particular features to which attention is drawn in Greece or central Europe, and also to stress its sacrificial role. The horse occupies so central a place precisely because it assumes in itself the whole universe and has a vicarious role to perform. It is significant that the chapters of the Shatapatha Brahmana where the ashvamedha is minutely described are followed by a chapter on the purushamedha, or human sacrifice,190 which in turn is followed by a further chapter on the sarvamedha, or all-sacrifice.191
Our second text is from the Yajur Veda and is a prayer said by the officiating priest in the course of the ashvamedha.
RV I, 163
YV XXII, 22
Daivasura
21 The quest for immortality is one of Man's deepest instincts. At the same time he is aware that immortality is not his "natural" lot; immortality belongs, if at all, to the Gods. Thus a yearning to become a God springs up spontaneously within Man. We have already heard the chant of victory:
Man can become immortal only if he is divinized or, rather, divinization amounts to immortality.
In connection with this theme the Vedic experience contributes two intuitions, the first of which is considered here and the second in the next text. The Brahmanas tell us explicitly that not even the Gods were originally immortal, that immortality is not natural to the Gods, that they also had to struggle for it. Sacrifice is the way to immortality, because sacrifice is the one original and originating act, as we have already seen.
It would be merely a farce if the Gods were to achieve their immortality without a struggle, without the risk of not getting it and so we have the scene set for the asuras, those beings that are usually referred to as demons, for lack of a better term. One should recall in this connection that angels and demons have the same origin and that their good and evil features are themselves the fruits of a struggle and a test.
The fact that the Gods are obliged to win their immortality has two important implications for Men. First, the Gods are real and inspiring examples, for they have gone through the same fundamental experience as Men: that of having to gain their real freedom. To attain freedom means to become immortal, to be free from the clutches of time, for as long as one is tied to time one is not really free. The Gods are really Men's fellow travelers on the journey toward immortality. Men's relation with them is one of companionship, for Gods and Men share a common destiny in spite of their differing positions in an acknowledged hierarchy. The other implication, the recognition of which gives peace and serenity to Man, is that the Gods cannot be whimsical creatures, for there is a rita, an Order, whose dynamism is Sacrifice, which transcends both Men and Gods and which can in no way be manipulated or considered as being activated by an anthropomorphic will.
Let us now take a closer look at the texts themselves. Prajapati, the Lord of all creatures, whose name is scarcely mentioned in the Rig Veda,193 holds in the Brahmanas a position of capital importance. According to a lengthy narrative in the Brahmanas, Prajapati is the primordial being before whom nothing whatever was in existence. The Shatapatha Brahmana tells us over and over again that "Prajapati is sacrifice;" that is, Prajapati performed an act of self immolation, self-sacrifice, in order that creatures might come to be. Thus creation is regarded as the sacrifice of Prajapati, as the ontological self-despoliation of the supreme principle in order to bring into existence the intermediate order of things which consists of the cosmos, which has come forth from the Father of all beings and is neither the Father nor sheer nothingness. This intermediate order, being neither stable nor self-existent, is by constitution transitory, or, in other words, dynamic. The creature is powerless in itself to sustain itself or to complete its full span of destiny, but must attempt by means of sacrifice to recover its true status, to return to its source, retrieve its unity, that is, to become immortal, divinized.
Prajapati, we may remember, created two types of superior beings, the devas (Gods) and the asuras (demons). In the beginning neither the Gods nor the asuras were immortal. Both tried to become immortal and fought each other in order to achieve immortality. They discovered that only by means of sacrifice could they become immortal. Both performed sacrifice194 and both strove to conquer the world.195 The Shatapatha Brahmana abounds in anecdotes about this struggle for immortality, a struggle of a unique kind, a veritable ritual battle in which the combatants are priests and the weapons sacrifices. Sacrifice is the sole means by which the Gods may win the victory. Because the devas perform the sacrifice better than the asuras they win.196 Before the final victory there are recurring conflicts and victories of a temporary nature, for the asuras try again and again to mount fresh assaults.
The rivalry between the Gods and the demons, the so-called daivasura struggle, is the subject of one of the richest myths extant concerning the conflict constantly being waged between the two forces harbored in Man. The conflict here, however, is not ultimate. Both devas and asuras are offspring of the supreme God and it is not even certain which of the two are the firstborn.197 The asuras are the enemies of the Gods but very seldom appear as enemies of Men. Both strive for immortality, but they also know that there is an incompatibility between them so that the victory can be won only by one side. The rituals of sacrifice, which is considered the sole total and all-inclusive act, constitute the rules of the game. The first instrument of sacrifice is the firstborn of Prajapati, vac, the word. They will have to fight with it and for it. But this primordial word is both right and wrong, true and untrue. The word is always ambivalent. The Shatapatha Brahmana goes on to say that truth took refuge among the Gods and untruth among the asuras and that for this reason the devas became feeble and poor, while the demons became rich; but in the long run he who abides in truth reaches fullness of existence, while he who remains in untruth loses everything. It is by means of this sacrifice to truth that the Gods finally attained victory.198 The symbolism needs no further interpretation.
SB I, 5, 2, 6
SB II, 7, 3, 1
SB II, 2, 2, 8-14
SB II, 4, 2, 1-5
SB II, 4, 3, 3
SB V, 1, 1, 1-2
SB VIII, 4, 3, 2
SB X, 2, 2, 1
SB XI, 1, 8, 2-4
TS I, 6, 10, 2
Haviryajna
22 Our next texts, like those of the preceding section, all implicitly suggest that the human condition holds within it a deeper invisible dimension. This dimension Upanishadic spirituality seeks to develop (and sometimes to extricate) from the complexus of human reality in order to form out of it an autonomous body of doctrine. This process runs the risk of becoming a discarnate or dematerialized spirituality. We are as yet far from this dichotomy, but already the emphasis is shifting more and more toward interiority.
Yet we should not forget the second and distinctive feature of Vedic spirituality mentioned in the preceding chapter. There exists in the Vedas a trend that is not directed toward immortality and takes no pleasure in the thought of it, but rather is repelled by the idea of "living forever." At this stage Man either seeks to interiorize and perfect the idea of immortality, or he prefers in his present human condition to renounce altogether such a dream of living forever. In a word, he craves either liberation, that is, escape from the given human condition, or its temporal reform, the latter desire finding its expression in the myth of rejuvenation. The Upanishads follow the former path, but we are still at this stage concerned with the latter, which, we may note, survives in popular religion until our own times. It is after all a constant desire of the human psyche: not to transcend time but to bring it to a halt.
There is a wonderful story in the Brahmanas which may well be the origin of other similar legends.199 It tells how a certain tribe was afflicted by dissensions and plagues as a punishment for their ill-treatment of the sage Cyavana who was now passing through an abandoned old age in pain and decrepitude. Their chieftain, Saryata, vexed to learn of this, went to the sage, paid him homage, and offered him in atonement his daughter Sukanya. The Ashvins, coming on the scene, tried to seduce Sukanya and sneered at her when she refused their advances, preferring to stay with the decrepit old man to whom her father had given her: "I will not abandon him as long as he lives," she said. The sage, aware of her promise (for indeed she told him), instructed her that if they came again she was to bring home to them their own incompleteness and imperfection, adding that he would not tell them in what respect they were incomplete and imperfect until they made him young again. The stratagem succeeded and the Ashvins made him young again by virtue of the waters of a certain pool. It is significant that what led them to make him young again was the desire they had to partake of Soma. Cyavana then told them that they were imperfect because they were excluded by the Gods from participation in a certain sacrifice they were performing in Kurukshetra.200
Not only is the whole text concerned with sacrifice, but it also derives its meaningfulness from the obedience and fidelity of Sukanya, who was ready to give her whole life in service to a ghostlike man rather than to disobey her father. This story supplies a vivid context for the more abstract quotations of this chapter.
Sacrifice consists of an immolation. We find here once again the thought that the sacrifice is "stretched out," just as thread is stretched on the loom to be woven. If it is a question of Soma-juice, then one presses it, extracts all its virtue, slays it; if it is fire, then it dwindles and dies. In the same way all sacrifice involves a dying. But this immolation is a dying-for-life, for the sacrifice in the very act of dying renews itself within the universe; it is thus a universal principle of life, everywhere in operation. All that is, the whole cosmos, comes to be through sacrifice. The highest act of God is that of Agni the sacrificer, the cosmic priest who constantly renews the life of every being. If it is unable to participate in the cosmic and universal sacrifice existence dwindles and is annihilated.
SB II, 2, 2, 1
SB III, 6, 2, 26
SB III, 9, 4, 23
SB XIV, 3, 2, 1
Purushayajna
23 Although Scripture says more than once that sacrifice is that through which the Gods acquired immortality, or that by means of which Man obtains both material benefits and immortality, it stresses equally that "sacrifice is Man."201 It is Man who offers, it is through him that sacrifice is performed. Sacrifice corresponds to Man in stature and proportions. In certain passages of the Shatapatha Brahmana the different parts of the human body are compared to the different constituent elements of sacrifice and to the objects employed in it. If it is true that sacrifice is Man it can equally be said that Man is a sacrifice. Sacrifice involves both immolation and new life and so it is with Man also. He is born, dies, and is reborn. The texts say that Man is born three times, once from his parents, a second time when he offers sacrifice, and a third time when, on dying, he is burned on the pyre. The second birth, that effected by sacrifice, is explained as follows: through the offering that he makes the sacrificer communicates with the world of the Gods and there comes about a sort of exchange. Just as a snake sloughs off its dead skin, so he who offers sacrifice "sloughs off" his mortal body. He presents it to the Gods and receives in return an immortal body. There is a whole series of preliminary rites called diksha leading up to the sacrifice proper. Through the diksha the Man receives a second birth, this time a divine birth, and he becomes immortal. The sacrificer has thus two bodies and it is his mortal body that he offers to the Gods in sacrifice. Once he is assured of a divine body he descends to earth once more and purchases back from the Gods his sacrificed body.
Certain texts also speak of human life in terms of a constitutive debt; one is indebted to the Gods, indebted to the sages, indebted to the ancestors, and indebted to Men. Debt is perhaps an ambiguous word202 owing to the sociological and judicial connotations it has acquired. Rna refers, certainly, to a kind of moral obligation or duty that Man is discharging when he sacrifices, but this is to be understood as an act that must be done because it entails the fulfillment of Man's own being. Man's life on earth is ontically linked with the whole of reality and it is only when he responds with openness, or, to put it another way, when he permits within himself the unhampered circulation of being, that Man can be said to possess real life. To recognize one's place in the world involves the acknowledgment of a fivefold link, a fivefold debt, not merely as a social obligation but as a constitutive bond of unity. We have come into existence by a "jumping outside," by a movement or "transgression" away from the undifferentiated whole, and it is specifically by sacrifice that we reintegrate ourselves into the total reality.203
The passage about the four debts may help us to understand the way in which the sacrifice reintegrates Man into the whole of reality. By sacrificing to the Gods he restores his unity with the heavenly world; by reciting the Vedas, he acquires wisdom, he rescues himself from isolation and banality; by having progeny he establishes his links with mankind, past and future; finally, by practicing hospitality he communes with his fellow beings in an actualized present. The four debts do not impoverish Man; on the contrary they enrich him by letting him partake in the totality of the universe.204
The last text in this group sums up all that has been said and foreshadows the teaching of the Upanishads. It reminds us in brief that the life of Man, Man's daily round, consists of a series of sacrifices. Here there is already an advance beyond ritualism, an advance beyond all desire for prosperity or this world's goods--a declaration that true sacrifice consists of sacred study. A development is now taking place which will transform the idea of sacrifice, interiorize it, and purify it until in its performance only true knowledge will count.
The more general and cosmic interpretation of sacrifice does not, however, take priority in these texts over the concrete and ritualistic one. It is not only the cosmic purusha who performs the sacrifice and not only the primordial Man who can be termed both sacrifice and sacrificer; the concrete human being also is said to be the sacrifice and it is by sacrifice that he lives, because sacrifice links him with the whole of existence and enables him to perform all his duties as Man.
The fulfilment of all "debts" would lead inexorably to the elimination of the individual, to the immolation of the little self, to the purushamedha, the human sacrifice. It is not a question here of the destruction of the whole purusha, which would amount to an annihilation of the whole of reality, but to the immolation of the little purusha, that is, the individualistic ego. This ego is understood as all that constitutes individuality. To this end elaborate rituals will furnish the victim with a borrowed body so that substitution forestalls the actual killing of any human being.205 Yet Man is the first of the five victims206 and so must be the first one to be sacrificed,207 though (as other texts will say) the strength of one victim passes on to the next so that the horse is the substitute for Man, the bull for the horse, and so on,208 until finally by the immolation of one victim all are adjudged to have been sacrificed.209
The human being is Man and Man is the sacrifice. This priestly identification of the individual with Man plays an important part in the understanding of human sacrifice. There is a twofold rationale to be observed in human sacrifice (we are ignoring, of course, degraded forms of it which are also found). This rationale is concerned in the first place with the debts owed by the individual to the Gods, the ancestors, and so on, by virtue of his having come to individual existence at all. Only by the sacrifice of himself as a separate ego can Man redeem and rescue himself. The rationale includes also the idea of a sharing by the individual in the cosmic sacrifice of the purusha. If the whole world has come into being by the sacrifice of Man, the individual must reenact that creating and saving sacrifice by performing it himself. Man, in this sense, is priest for the whole cosmos and his priestly action must include the sacrifice of himself. From this perspective we can understand two main features of Man's self-sacrifice: the looking for substitutes, on the one hand, and the interiorization of the sacrifice, on the other.
We may close this commentary on the human sacrifice by recalling the most ancient version of the story of Harishcandra as it is found in the Aitareya Brahmana210 before its rich and variegated elaboration in the itihasas and puranas, that is, in the epics and in popular literature. In spite of his hundred wives, King Harishcandra had no son and, having prayed to Varuna for an offspring, he promised at the same time that he would sacrifice any son born to him to the God. A son, Rohita, was born and his father by different excuses succeeded in postponing the sacrifice until the young man could bear his own arms. "My son," said the father to him, "it is Varuna who has given you to me. I must sacrifice you to him." Rohita escapes to the forest and wanders there for six years. He meets eventually a certain poor rishi, who for a hundred cows consents to offer his second son Sunahshepa as a substitute for Rohita.211 The king and the God agree. "A Brahmin is worth more than a Kshatriya," says Varuna. For another hundred cows the same rishi Ajigarta binds his own son to the sacrificial post and for yet another hundred is ready to slay the boy himself, for nobody else is available to perform these actions, the four officiating priests having refused to bind the victim. At this Sunahshepa, realizing that he, a human being, is going to be sacrificed as if he were not a man, begins a mantra recitation to the Gods. His bonds loosen one by one as he recites this succession of verses in praise of Ushas. At the final verse the last knot is loosed and not only is Sunahshepa free but king Harishcandra also recovers from the dropsy with which he has been stricken. The famous sage Vishvamitra, one of the four priests, receives Sunahshepa as his son and curses Ajigarta.
Although this story is generally known as the akhyana (story) of Sunahshepa, we could consider also the figure of Rohita, Harishcandra's son, and call it "the myth of the human condition." Rohita represents Man in his basic human situation. He is born into life with a constitutive debt, the debt to the Gods. Rohita discovers the debt and escapes into the forest, but then recognizes his duty through his father's suffering (he has dropsy) and returns to face his destiny. Before returning he has to overcome, for the fifth time, the test (which comes not from a "bad" temptor, but from the God Indra himself) not to go back to his father and be sacrificed. It is only when he has set his heart and mind on the right way that he meets the poor Ajigarta and his sons, and vicarious substitution becomes possible.
Here we have most of the motifs connected with sacrifice: life is a free gift which can be preserved and fully lived only by means of a gift given in return; there is a supreme order of things over which neither Men nor Gods have any power; the vicarious substitution, whatever its subjective motive may be, has an ontological justification, because ultimately human value does not reside in the individual but in the person and thus one person can take the place of, put on the mask of, another. Herein is the realm of human freedom and the mystery of love. Prayer has a power of its own and can reverse the order of things because it introduces an element of mercy which would otherwise be stifled by unmitigated justice. Human greed and the mysterious ways of the Gods are also vividly depicted in this myth.
One of the most human and universal conceptions of sacrifice is the so-called pancamahayajna, the five great sacrifices. Here the idea of sacrifice embraces all aspects of life and Man's relationship to all beings, from plants and animals up to Brahman. Man is related to all beings by means of sacrifice. Sacrifice is not his link exclusively with the Gods; even water offered to a guest has the same value and symbolic depth as a complicated ritual. The study of the Scriptures itself is the highest liturgical act, the sacrifice to Brahman. It is not water or ghee, but the student's intellect which is the substance of this sacrifice. Thus, even before the Upanishadic spiritualizing of sacrifice, this conception saves sacrifice from becoming a mere speciality of the priests and enables it to penetrate the whole of Man's life.
SB I, 3, 2, 1
SB I, 7, 2, 1-5
SB II, 2, 4, 8
SB III, 6, 2, 16
SB XI, 2, 1, 1
SB XI, 2, 6, 13
SB XI, 5, 6, 1-3
1. Sacrifice [resembles] a loom with threads extended
this way and that, composed of innumerable rituals.
Behold now the Fathers weaving the fabric; seated
on the outstretched loom. "Lengthwise! Crosswise!" they cry.
2. Behold now a Man who unwinds and sets the thread,
a Man who unwinds it right up to the vault of heaven.
Here are the pegs; they are fastened to the place of worship.
The Saman-hymns are used for weaving shuttles.
3. What was the model, the pattern, what the connection?
What was the ritual butter and the line of demarcation?
What was the meter, the hymn, the preliminary chant,
when all the deities sacrificed God in oblation?
4. The Gayatri meter became the yokefellow of Agni,
Savitri took as his companion the meter Ushnih,
Soma, the one who is praised by hymns, took Anushtubh,
while the word of the Lord of Speech was strengthened by Brhati.
5. The meter Viraj was reserved to Mitra and Varuna;
for Indra's day the meter allotted was Trishtubh.
The meter Jagati had access to all the Gods.
To this arrangement the human poets conformed.
6. It was this same ritual the Seers, our Fathers, adopted
when in the beginning sacrifice was first created.
With the eyes of my mind I believe I can envisage
those who were first to offer this sacrifice.
7. The rituals, meters, and hymns were according to the rubrics,
even those of the Seven godlike Seers of old.
When the sages follow in the path traced by the ancestors
they take the reins in their hands like charioteers.
1. Innumerable: ekashatam, lit. one hundred and one.
Rituals: devakarman, rite, act of worship.
Fathers: pitarah, ancestral sacrificers as in v. 6.
2. A Man: puman, the primordial man, i.e., adipurusha, or the purusha of RV X, 90 (§ I 5). He is the sacrificer and the sacrifice at the same time: yajnapurusha. Cf. AV X, 7, 43 (§ I 3).
3. Correlation and analogy between model, pattern, and connection (prama, pratima, nidana) and meter, preliminary chant, and hymn.
Ambivalent sentence: the deities offer to the unique God and also the deities offer God as sacrifice. Cf. RV X, 90, 6 (§ I 5).
All the deities sacrificed God: yad deva devam ayajanta vishve. Cf. the parallel idea in RV I, 164, 50. They offer the sacrifice of Man, the mediator of v. 2. These may be the ancestors, pitarah, of v. 1 whose function is to "weave the hundred and one rituals."
4-5. Relate the Gods to their respective meters; cf. also AB VIII, 6, 3 (XXXVII, 2).
Lord of Speech: Brhaspati. rs question
The Origin of Sacrifice
i) 1. Through sacrifice the Gods sacrificed to the Sacrifice.
Those were the first established rites.
Their greatness enhanced, they ascended to heaven
where dwell the ancient Gods who must needs be appeased.
2. Thus originated sacrifice; it manifested itself.
It came to birth and then increased.
It became the Lord and Ruler of the Gods.
May sacrifice bestow upon us some treasure!
3. There where the Gods made an offering to the Gods,
where, immortal, they worshiped with heart immortal,
may we also revel, in highest heaven.
May we gaze on it in wonder at the rising of the sun!
4. Using the Man for their oblation,
the Gods performed the sacrifice.
But more powerful still than this oblation
was the offering they made with the Hymn's invocation.
ii) 1. Brahman is the priest, Brahman the sacrifice;
by Brahman the posts are erected.
From Brahman the officiating priest was born,
in Brahman is concealed the oblation.
2. Brahman is the spoon dripping fatness;
by Brahman the altar is established.
Brahman is the essence of sacrifice
the priests prepare the oblation.
To the minister, praise!
i) 1. Cf. RV I, 164, 50; X, 90, 16 (§ I 5) for the same stanza. Cf. also RV X, 130, 3(§ III 14); SB X, 2, 2, 2.
3. In highest heaven: parame vyoman. Cf. RV I, 164, 34 (§ I 11).
4. The first two lines are the same as in RV X, 90, 6(§ I 5).
Hymn: the hymn vihavya.
5. We have not given the last verse, which has many variant readings and is obscure.
ii) 1. Concealed: antarhita, placed within.
2. Essence of sacrifice: yajnasya sattvam.
Priests: rtvijah.
Praise: svaha.
3-4. These two last verses are omitted as they do not refer directly to the origin of the sacrifice.
The Fire Sacrifice
Light is Agni, Agni is light. The one who is light, he calls light . . . Agni offers
itself in sacrifice to the rising Sun and the setting Sun offers itself in sacrifice to
Agni in the evening; Night sacrifices itself to the Day and Day sacrifices itself to
the Night.152
i) 1. To the Lord, the far-renowned, the wise Ordainer,
ancient and glorious, I offer the tribute of a song.
Anointed with oil is he, the Lord, the powerful
giver of bliss and guardian of noble riches.
2. On the power of sacrifice which is grounded in highest heaven
and by Cosmic Order in Cosmic Order established,
[our Fathers], though mortal, attained immortal seats
in those spheres above which firmly support the heavens.
ii) Agni extends the sacrifice to heaven:
his forms are scattered everywhere.
iii) Indra possesses power divine and glorious.
The singer in the house is Agni, the wise, the seer.
May our sacrifice be at hand and pleasing to the gathered people!
For freedom and for perfect bliss we pray!
iv) 9. Fire is Light, Light is Fire. Glory!
Sun is Light, Light is Sun. Glory!
Fire is Splendor, Light is Splendor. Glory!
Sun is Splendor, Light is Splendor. Glory!
Light is Sun, Sun is Light. Glory!
11. Let us, proceeding to the sacrifice,
utter a prayer to the Lord,
who hears us even from afar.
20. You are sacred drink, may I enjoy your sacred drink!
You are greatness, may I share in your greatness!
You are power, may I partake in your power!
You are treasures, may I share in your treasures!
21. O shining ones, remain in this dwelling,
stay in this gathering, this place, this spot.
Remain right here and do not stir!
25. O Lord, be our closest friend, our savior
and gracious protection. O wonderful Lord
of glorious renown, come near us, we pray you,
and bestow upon us most splendid treasures.
26. To you, most brilliant and shining God,
we pray now for happiness for our friends.
Listen attentively to our call;
save us from every evil man.
38. Thus have we now approached the All-Knower,
the one who is the best procurer of good things.
Endow us, O Majesty, with strength and glory.
v) And so they say: all other sacrifices have an end but the agnihotra does not come to an end. All that which lasts for twelve years is indeed limited; the agnihotra is nevertheless unlimited, for when a man has offered in the evening he looks forward with confidence to offering in the morning; and when he has offered in the morning he likewise looks forward with confidence to offering again in the evening. Thus the agnihotra is unlimited and, hence, from its unlimitedness, creatures also are born unlimited. Whosoever knows the unlimitedness of the agnihotra is himself unlimited in prosperity and offspring.
vi) You, O Agni, are the righteous, the truthful, the mighty, and most wonderful. You are indeed manifest to all: you, O Agni, are omnipresent. Men rank Agni highest for grace and joy, for grace and joy reside undoubtedly in sacrifice. You, who are heaven, the ruler and divine one, we human beings invoke with song.
i) 1. Lord: Agni.
Anointed with oil: ghrtaprasatta.
Powerful: asura, lit. the benevolent Asura.
2. On the power: shake, locative of shaka, might, power.
In highest heaven: parame vyoman.
By Cosmic Order in Cosmic Order established: rtena rtam dharunam dharayanta.
Immortal seats: lit. unborn persons, probably the Gods. A difficult but important text.
ii) Extends: lit. stretches: tatana from the root tan-, to stretch out. Cf. RV X, 130, 1 (§ III 14) and also RV I, 159, 4; X, 57, 2 for the same metaphor.
Cf. SB I, 4, 4, 1 (§ I 13) and what has been said about Agni in § III 4.
iv) 9. Cf. KausB II, 8 (quoted in the Introduction).
Fire: Agni.
Light: jyotis.
Sun: Surya.
11. The first approach to the sacrifice requires an invocation to Agni, the mediator.
17-19. Cf. § III 11.
20. Sacred drink: andhas, soma plant, invigorating life-giving food and drink.
Greatness: mahas.
Power: bhakshiya.
Treasures: rayi.
21. Shining ones: revati, which may refer to the cows, to the waters, and/or to holy speech.
Dwelling: yoni, womb, but also homely abode.
25. Savior: tratr, protector.
Gracious: shiva.
Protection: varuthya.
Treasures: rayi, in a material as well as a spiritual sense.
26. Cf. RV V, 24, 3-4(§ VII 53).
Most brilliant: shocishtha.
29; 31-33; 37. Cf. § III 11.
38. Majesty: agni samraj. This prayer is uttered as the worshiper approaches the ahavaniya fire.
39-40. Cf. § III 11.
v) Have an end: are concluded, finished. There is a play here on the root stha-; sam-stha: to be concluded, to come to an end, and an-upa-stha-: to be unfinished, not to come to an end. Agnihotram na samtishthate/anupashthitam agnihotram: i.e., agnihotra is an everlasting, perennial sacrifice.
Unlimited in prosperity . . . : this may also refer to the spiritual effect of the perennial, creative sacrifice. Cf. SB II, 2, 4, 8 (§ III 23).
vi) A hymn of praise to Agni.
The Drop of Life
The Sea are you, Seer, revealer of all things;
under your sway are the World's five regions.
You transcend both earth and heaven.
Yours, O Purifier, are the Stars and the Sun.169
1. I have tasted, as one who knows its secret,
the honeyed drink that charms and relaxes,
the drink that all, both Gods and mortals,
seek to obtain, calling it nectar.
2. Once penetrated within my heart,
you become Aditi and appease the Gods' wrath.
O Drop, who enjoy Indra's friendship, convey
to us wealth, like a steed who is bridled, obedient.
3. We have drunk the Soma and become immortal!
We have attained the light, we have found the Gods!
What can the malice of mortal Man
or his spite, O Immortal, do to us now?
4. Bless the heart, O Life-Drop, which has received you,
as a father his son, or a friend his friend.
Wise Soma, whose voice we hear from afar,
prolong our days that we may live.
5. These glorious drops are my health and salvation:
they strengthen my joints as thongs do a cart.
May these droplets guard my foot lest it stumble
and chase from my body all manner of ills.
6. Make me shine brightly like fire produced by friction.
Illumine us, make us ever more prosperous.
Enthused by you, Soma, I find myself rich!
Enter within us for our well-being.
7. With hearts inspired may we relish the Juice
like treasure inherited from our Fathers!
Lengthen our days, King Soma, as the sun
causes the shining days to grow longer.
8. Have mercy upon us, King Soma, and save us!
Do not forget that we are your disciples.
We are eager, O Drop, with zeal and dexterity!
Do not hand us over to our enemy's pleasure!
9. It is you, O Soma, who guard our bodies;
in each of our limbs you have made your abode,
O surveyor of men! if we have transgressed your statutes,
forgive us, O God, like a loving friend.
10. May I take him to myself like a well-disposed friend!
May this draught not harm us, O Lord of the bay horses--
this Soma now absorbed within me! For this
I pray to God to prolong my existence.
11. Our weariness and pains are now far removed;
the forces of darkness have fled in fear.
Soma has surged within us mightily.
We have reached our goal! Life is prolonged!
12. This drop that has penetrated our hearts, O Fathers,
this Soma, immortal deep within us mortals,
him would we honor with our oblations.
We long to abide in his grace and favor.
13. In an intimate union with the Fathers, O Soma,
you have extended yourself throughout Earth and Heaven.
You would we honor with our oblations,
desirous of becoming possessors of riches.
14. O guardian Gods, pronounce on us blessing!
Let sleep not overtake us nor useless talk.
May we forever be dear to Soma!
Having won the mastery, let us speak wisdom!
15. Imparter of strength, come, take full possession,
O Soma, light-finder, man's constant overseer.
Enlist your helpers, O Lord; place a guard
on our lives both in front and behind to protect us.
1. As one who knows its secret: sumedhas (a free translation), lit. having a good understanding, wise.
That charms and relaxes: svadhyah varivovittarasya, that inspires and grants freedom, stirs and gives good thoughts.
2. You become Aditi: i.e., Aditi in her function of liberating from sin. When Soma is in the body he purifies and averts the anger of the Gods.
3. Cf. RV IX, 113, 7 (§ V 23).
4. Bless the heart sham nah bhava hrde, do good to our heart, be a blessing, a gift, blissful for us when drunk; sham hrde: refreshing the heart.
O Life-Drop: indu, drop (and also moon).
5. Glorious drops: yashas, object of honor and veneration.
8. Save us: svasti, for our salvation, well-being.
Disciples: vratyah, those who abide by your laws (vrata).
9. Surveyor of men: nrcakshas.
10. Lord of the bay horses: Indra.
God: Indra.
12. The Fathers, pitarah, are here called to witness, as they also love Soma.
15. Lord: indu.
The Pressing Stones
Fixing with careful attention the press stones
of sacrifice, I invoke noble Heaven and Earth.
Now, O Lord, raise your flames pure and beautiful,
bringing to men all manner of blessings.172
1. Let them utter loud sounds! We too will utter!
Give tongue, one and all, to the Stones who give tongue,
when, O rocks, O mountains, swiftly clashing,
you bring to God's ears your rhythmic din.
2. These Stones, gnashing their green-tinted jaws,
emit sounds like a hundred, a thousand, voices.
Their task achieved, these Pressing Stones,
noble workers in a noble cause,
forestall the offerer in tasting the oblation.
3. They utter loud sounds as they find the sweet Soma.
Booming, they gnaw the pulp prepared.
These bulls, skillful pounders, bellow aloud
as they seize the branch of the reddish shrub.
4. Exalted and inebriated by Soma, they shout,
calling upon God through whom they have tasted
the ambrosial Soma. They skillfully dance
with the sisters, held in firm clasp together,
and make the earth resound with their stamping.
5. They have raised their voices to heaven, these eagles,
they have danced with vigor, these dark-colored hinds.
Now they sink toward the lower stone, find contact,
and effuse copious Soma-seed, brightly shining.
6. Like strong draught animals who draw a cart,
bulls who wear the yoke and are harnessed together,
the Stones emit bellows, panting and heaving.
Then the sound of their snorting is like that of horses.
7. Acclaim [the Stones] with their ten [workers],
ten belts, ten thongs, and tenfold harness,
with their ten reins, who, never growing old,
yoked ten times over, draw the ten yokes.
8. These Stones are like racehorses with ten sets of reins,
their bits well fixed within their jaws.
At the flowing of the Soma-juice they have been first
to taste the milky fluid of the first-crushed stalk.
9. These Soma-eaters kiss the bay steeds of Indra.
They are set for their stalk-crushing task on an oxhide.
When Indra has drunk the sweet Soma they extract,
he increases in strength, waxes great, like a bull.
10. Your stalk is as strong as a bull. Naught will harm you!
You are ever full of juice, ever replete,
fair in glory, like the daughters of the rich
in whose sacrifice, O Stones, you take delight.
11. Smashing but never shattered, these Stones
are tireless; they know neither death nor cessation.
Exempt from sickness, old age, and suffering,
sleek-looking, free from thirst or craving.
12. Your fathers stand firm from age to age.
Enamored of repose, they stir not from their seat.
Untouched by age, of golden Soma never bereft,
they have forced heaven and earth to pay heed to their sound.
13. Thus speak the Stones at their release, when their journey is over, as they clatter, like men drinking wine.
Like farmers sowing the seed, they decrease not,
but rather increase by their gulping this Soma.
14. They uplift their voices at the ritual pressing,
like children who playfully push at their mother.
Unshackle now the thoughts of the Soma-presser!
May they roll underneath, these stones till now revered!
1. God: Indra, throughout.
3. Sweet Soma: mandu.
Pulp prepared: the prepared juice is compared with cooked meat.
Reddish shrub: the soma plant.
4. Sisters: referring to the fingers of the priest pressing the soma.
5. Now they sink . . . : erotic comparison of the meeting between the upper and the lower stone.
Soma-seed: retas, semen.
7. The Stones: added for intelligibility.
Ten [workers]: the ten [fingers] engaged in pressing, which is here compared with the harnessing of a horse.
8. The ten reins are the ten fingers of the priest.
9. Bay steeds of Indra: as Indra himself drinks the Soma, his steeds are fed with the soma-herb.
Oxhide: the pressing of soma is compared with the milking of a cow, both actions being done while sitting on a skin.
11. Neither death nor cessation: ashrthita amrtyavah, neither interruption nor relaxation. Root shrath-to loosen. The personification of the stones allows for a personified interpretation of the verse; otherwise we should translate: free from deterioration and erosion; or: active, effective.
Sleek-looking: oily, unctuous.
Free from thirst or craving: atrshita atrshnajah.
12. Your fathers: the mountains from which the stones are taken.
Enamored of repose: kshemakama.
"They" in the last line refers again to the stones.
Sound: rava, again refers to the noise of pressing.
13. The stones are compared with horses released from their chariot.
Men drinking wine: anjaspah; the meaning is doubtful. Does it refer to the horses "drinking at once?"
14. Roll underneath: vivartantam, from vi- vrt-, to turn around or move hither and thither, i.e., to stop working.
Revered: cayamana, lit. considering themselves (the stones) to be something, i.e., sacred and important. The root cay- means both to be afraid of and to respect.
The Sacred Tree
1. At the time of sacrifice,
O Lord of the wood,
the worshipers smear
you with sacred oil.
When you stand upright
or when you repose
on Earth's bosom, you still
will grant us good fortune.
2. Set up to the East
of the sacred Fire,
you accept our prayer,
intense and unflagging.
Hold yourself high
to bring us prosperity.
Drive far away
dearth of inspiration.
3. Lord of the wood,
take now your stance
on this, the loftiest
spot of all earth.
Well-fixed and measured one,
give to the worshiper,
who brings a sacrifice,
honor and glory.
4. Girdled and adorned,
he displays youthful beauty,
yet is fairer by far
when brought to new birth.
With minds contemplative
and godward directed,
our sages of lofty
intelligence rear him.
5. Born anew, he is born
on a day most auspicious,
growing in wisdom
in the assembly of men.
Wise men and skillful
consecrate him with song.
Approaching the Gods,
the priest calls aloud.
6. O Lord of the wood,
whom god-fearing men
have firmly positioned,
and ax has fashioned,
be pleased to grant us,
O divine poles of sacrifice,
a precious treasure,
the gift of children.
7. May these posts which are felled
and fixed in the earth,
to which the sacrificial
ladle has been raised,
which fix the boundaries
of the sacred field,
gain for us from the Gods
what is meet to be chosen.
8. The Adityas, the Rudras,
and the Vasus, directing
Earth and Heaven
and earth's airy spaces,
shall bless in concord
our worship and raise
our emblem of sacrifice
high in the sky.
9. Like swans that fly
in a long-drawn-out line,
so these stakes have come to us
brightly colored.
Raised aloft by the sages
and turned to the East,
they proceed as Gods
to the Gods' habitations.
10. These posts, set in earth
and adorned with circles,
appear to my eye
like the horns of horned creatures.
Upraised by the priests
in supplication,
may they lend us their aid
at the onset of battle!
11. O Lord of the wood,
whom this ax well-whetted
has set in our midst
with resultant joy,
put forth branches
a hundred times over!
So may we also
with thousands be blessed!
1. Lord of the wood: Vanaspati, applied here to the one particular tree out of which the yupa, the sacrificial post, will be made.
Worshipers: devayantah those loving and serving God, the godly.
The tree is life-bringing, both when alive in the forest and when used as a pole of sacrifice.
2. Prayer: brahman.
Intense and unflagging: ajaram suviram, undecaying, unfading, and full of vitality (or "performed by the most eminent persons").
Dearth of inspiration: amati, lack of consciousness, of devotion, of awareness.
3. Loftiest spot: varshman, the surface of the earth, the center of the world: the place of the altar. Cf. YV XXIII, 62.
4. Girdled: parivita, lit. girt with a rope, i.e., the sacred cord (of grass) which is tied around the tree that is to be felled, so that it may become a yupa, or pole of sacrifice. A symbol also of the second birth, which takes place through the sacrifice. This verse is used in the initiation ceremony, upanayana, according to some GS (cf. e.g., AGS I, 20, 9).
Brought to new birth: lit. being born, jayamana, present participle. The act of being raised is the tree's initiation, a new birth accompanied by prayer (cf. v. 5).
6. Precious treasure: ratna, jewel, pearl, treasure.
Gift of children: prajavat, generative energy, offspring.
7. To which the sacrificial ladle: i.e., the ladle filled with sacred oil (cf. v. 1 and also RV IV, 6, 3) with which the posts are smeared.
Sacred field: kshetrasadhas.
What is meet to be chosen: varya, the most precious and valuable thing. Cf. ratna in v. 6.
8. Emblem of sacrifice: the yupa.
9. Stakes: here probably the posts that mark the line of separation between the different sacrificial areas (dedicated to different Gods).
The Sacrificial Horse
i) 1. How worthy of telling and how superb your birth,
O Steed, when first you whinnied, on seeing the light,
as you rose from the ocean of sea or of space
with your eagle wings and limbs of swift gazelle.
2. This Steed, the gift of Death, Trita has harnessed,
while Indra was the first of all to mount him,
the Gandharva first to grasp in his hands the reins.
From the substance of the Sun, O Gods, you fashioned this Steed.
3. You, O Steed, are Death, you the Sun;
you by a secret decree are Trita;
by only a little are you distinguished from Soma.
You have, they say, three connections in heaven.
4. In heaven, they say, you have three connections,
three in the waters and three within the ocean.
You resemble, O Steed, the Lord of the Waters,
for there, they say, is your highest birthplace.
5. Here, Racehorse, are your haunts for bathing;
here are the traces of your champion hooves.
Here I have seen the blessed reins that guide you,
which those who guard Cosmic Order cherish.
6. Your innermost self I have perceived in spirit,
a Bird from heaven who directs his course on high.
I have seen you rearing your winged head and advancing
by dust-free paths, fair and easy to travel.
7. There I have seen your exalted form seeking
to obtain food in the track of the Cow.
When mortal man approaches you for enjoyment,
the great devourer of plants has awakened.
8. Behind you, O Horse, come a chariot, the hero,
an offering of cows, and a troupe of fair maidens.
Desirous of your friendship, many follow.
With splendid courage the Gods have endowed you.
9. His horns are of gold, his feet of iron;
he is fleet as thought and swifter than Indra.
The Gods are gathered for this sacred meal, offered
to the one who first of all mounted this Stallion.
10. Like swans, the celestial coursers form a line
when they, the steeds, reach the heavenly arena,
the end of their lengthened row being motionless,
while those in the center still proceed.
11. Your body, O Steed, flies as with wings;
your spirit moves quickly like the wind.
Your horns are found in sundry places,
advancing in the forests with a jumping motion.
12. The fleet-footed Steed, his mind recollected
and thoughts directed godward, advances
to the place of sacrifice. A ram of his kindred
is led before; next come sages and minstrels.
13. The Steed has attained the abode supreme.
He has gone to the place of his Father and Mother.
May he find a warm welcome today among the Gods
and thus win good gifts for him who offers!
ii) O Brahman, in this kingdom may priests be born who shine brightly with sacred knowledge! May here be born warriors of heroic stature, who are skillful shots, good marksmen, invincible chariot fighters! May cows in this kingdom yield milk in plenty, our oxen be tireless, our horses swift, our housewives skillful! To him who offers this sacrifice may a hero-son be born, a champion, a mighty warrior, a persuasive speaker!
May Heaven send us rain for our needs!
May our fruit-bearing plants ripen in season!
May joy and prosperity fall to our lot!
i) 1. Ocean . . . of space: purisha, a much-discussed word, meaning not earth, as was traditionally said, but originally source, flood, afterward fullness, and still later dirt. Here the word almost certainly denotes the primeval source, the primordial waters. Cf., e.g., RV III, 22, 4 and also SB VII, 1, 1, 24.
2. Death: Yama, the King or God of Death, but here perhaps referring to Agni.
Trita: a little-known divinity related to Indra.
3. Death: Yama.
Sun: Aditya.
Three connections: i.e. his relationships to the divinities mentioned above.
4. The horse's threefold origin in the waters and in the ocean is here a poetic parallel to the three ''bonds" of Varuna. Cf. RV I, 24, 15, (§ IV 8).
Lord of the Waters: Varuna.
5. The homology with the Sun begins here. The Gods are the keepers of the reins and the guardians of rita.
6. Perceived in spirit: manasa . . . ajanam.
A Bird: the vital principle of the Steed is here identified with the Sunbird, i.e., the atman of the Steed is the Bird.
Paths: i.e., paths leading to heaven.
7. Your exalted form: te rupam uttamam.
Track of the Cow: either the firmament where the "trace" of the Cosmic Cow is found or, on earth, the racecourse where cows are won.
Devourer of plants: Agni.
8. An offering of cows . . . : lit. cows follow and the charm of virgins.
9. Horns . . . of gold: probably meaning hooves and referring to the rays of the sun. According to v. 2 it was Indra himself who first mounted the Steed.
10. The order is slightly modified to make it more intelligible. The idea is that the celestial, i.e., sunhorses, form a row of which the middle part is moving while the end stands still.
11. Spirit: citta.
Horns: perhaps referring to the hooves. Others see an allusion to quickly spreading forest fires.
ii) Priests: Brahmins.
Heaven: Parjanya.
The Struggle for Immortality
We have drunk the Soma and become immortal!
We have attained the light, we have found the Gods!192
i) The Sacrifice ran away from the Gods. The Gods called out after it, "Listen to us! Come back here." It replied, "Let it be so," and went back to the Gods. Now with what had thus come back to them, with that the Gods worshiped, and by this worship they became the Gods that they are to this very day.
ii) It is through Sacrifice that the Gods proceeded to the heavenly realm.
iii) 8. [Once upon a time] the Gods and the asuras, both of whom were offspring of Prajapati, were striving between themselves. Both sides were destitute of spirit because they were mortal and he who is mortal has no spirit. Among these two groups of mortal beings one, Agni, was immortal and it was through him, the immortal, that they both had their being. Now, whichever of the Gods was slain by the asuras was in very truth slain irrevocably.
9. And so the Gods became inferior. They continued worshiping and practicing fervent concentration, however, in the hope of overcoming their enemies who were likewise mortal. Their gaze, then, fell upon the immortal sacred Agni.
10. "Come," they said, "let us establish this immortality in our inmost self! When we have placed that immortality in our inmost self and have become immortal and unconquerable, we shall defeat our enemies who are neither immortal nor unconquerable."
11. They said: "The Fire is with both of us; let us then speak openly with the asuras."
12. They said: "Let us establish the two fires, but then what will you do?"
13. The asuras replied: "Then we shall set it in place, saying: eat grass here, eat wood here, cook rice here, cook meat here." The fire that the asuras set in place, it is by this that men eat [cooked food].
14. So the Gods established that Fire in their inmost self and, having established that immortality in their imnost self and become immortal and unconquerable, they defeated their mortal and conquerable enemies. And so he [the sacrificer] now establishes immortality in his inmost self, and though he has no hope of immortality, he attains a full lifetime. He becomes unconquerable, and when his enemy tries to overpower him, he is not overpowered. Therefore, when one who has established the Fire and one who has not are fighting, the one who has established the Fire overcomes. For by this [Fire] he becomes unconquerable, immortal.
iv) 1. The beings came in a respectful manner to find Prajapati; by "beings" is meant the creatures he had made.
"Arrange," they said to him, "how we are to live." First the Gods drew near, ritually invested with the sacred cord [of sacrifice] and bending the right knee.
He said to them: "Receive Sacrifice as your food, immortality as your life-force, and the Sun as your light-sphere."
2. Then drew near the ancestors, bearing over the right shoulder the cord of sacrifice and bending the left knee. To them he said: "Receive the funeral offerings of each month as your food, the svadha libation as your mind-swiftness and the moon as your light-sphere."
3. Then drew near the race of men, clothed and bowing low. To them he said: "Night and morning shall you eat, your offspring shall be your death and fire your light-sphere."
4. Then drew near the animals. He allowed them to eat according to their fancy, saying: "Eat as chance allows, how, when, and where you will." And indeed they eat when and where they find something to eat.
5. Then, finally, drew near the asuras. To them he assigned darkness and power. The power of the asuras does indeed exist.
All those beings, it is true, have perished, but beings continue to live according to the ordinance Prajapati has given them.
v) It is by dint of sacrifice that the Gods have brought to completion all their proper undertakings, and the same did the sages also.
vi) 1. The Gods and the asuras, both having Prajapati as their origin, were rivals of each other. So the asuras, swollen with pride, said, "In what, pray, should we place our oblation?" And they proceeded to place their oblations in their own mouths.
2. The Gods then proceeded to place their oblations each in the mouth of one of his fellows. And Prajapati gave himself over to them. In this way they became owners of sacrifice, for sacrifice is really the food of the Gods.
vii) All that the Gods effect they effect by intoned recitation. Now intoned recitation is sacrifice; it is through sacrifice therefore that they do whatever they do.
viii) And when he had emitted the creatures, he [Prajapati] rose up on high and departed to that world where that [sun] shines; for up to then there existed no other that was worthy of sacrifice. The Gods began then to offer him in sacrifice.
ix) Prajapati donated himself to the Gods. The sacrifice became verily theirs. Sacrifice is therefore the food of the Gods. When he donated himself to the Gods he emitted an image of himself, which is sacrifice . . . By sacrifice he purchased himself back from the Gods.
x) It was by the perfect accomplishment of the sacrifice that the Gods proceeded to the heavenly realm, and it was by reason of their defective performance of the same that the asuras were conquered.
i) Listen to us: a-shru-.
Let it be so: so' stu tatha iti.
Sacrifice is the Gods' dynamic force.
ii) The verb upa-ut-kram- suggests an ascent by degrees.
iii) 8. Destitute of spirit: anatman, without atman, seems here to have a personal meaning of "without a personal spirit." Cf. v. 10, where the Gods desire to insert this immortality, idam amrtam, into their inmost self: antaratman.
9. The immortal sacred Agni: etad amrtam agnyadheyam.
10. Established: adadhata, from the root dha-, to establish. Immortality is always a second gift, the fruit of a second birth, the result of the sacrifice.
14. The sacrificer cannot attain immortality like the Gods, but he attains his own fullness as his complete ayus or lifetime.
One who has established the Fire: ahitagni, the one who performs the agnihotra regularly. This sacrificial conclusion of a mythical text is typical of the B.
iv) Prajapati gives sacrifice, immortality, and the sun to the devas; masi-shraddha, svadha-shraddha (cf. thought-swift: manojavin), and the moon to the ancestors (Fathers); alternation of day and night, offspring (praja), and fire to men. To animals he gave no rite (and therefore no life-force) and no light, but only bodily sustenance; to the asuras, only darkness (tamas) and power (maya). Some translate maya as "illusion;" the power, however, is a shrewd and deceptive one, cunning might (Cf. § IV B b). Cf. SB XIII, 4, 3, 11, which again relates maya to the asuras so that asura-vidya becomes synonymous with maya, probably connoting magic. Noteworthy also are the different ways of approach: the devas are ritually invested with the sacred cord (yajnopavitin) on the left; the pitarah (Fathers) are pracinavitin (i.e., invested with the shoulder turned eastward, as for the shraddha ceremony); men are clothed.
v) By sacrifice the Gods and the rishis have accomplished everything that is proper for them to do, or have composed their rite.
Brought to completion: the root klp-, to make possible, to bring about, accomplish, perform, arrange, etc., is here used in the causative.
Proper undertakings: kalpa, fit; as a noun, rule, sacred ordinance.
vi) Cf. SB XI, 1, 8, 2 (ix).
vii) The Gods here are Prajapati and the pranas, creating together by means of stoma, i.e., by intoned recitation, song of praise, chant.
Life-Giving Immolation
i) Verily, when this sacrifice is performed, it is slain; when one presses the soma-juice, one slays it; when one causes the victim to acquiesce and immolates it and thrusts a knife into it, one slays it. With the pestle and mortar or the two grindstones one slays the oblation.
ii) Creatures who are not allowed to take part in sacrifice are reduced to nothingness. Therefore the sacrificer admits those who are not annihilated to take part in sacrifice, both men and beasts, Gods and birds, plants, trees, and everything that exists. Thus the entire universe takes part in sacrifice. Gods and men on the one hand and the Fathers on the other were wont in days gone by to drink together from the sacrifice. Sacrifice is their shared feast. In olden days they were to be seen as they came to this feast. Nowadays they are still present but remain invisible.
iii) Now concerning why Soma is called sacrifice: when they press him, they slay him and when they stretch him out, they cause him to be born. He is born in being stretched out, he is born "going on": whence comes yan-ja, and yanja, they explain, is the same as yajna.
iv) All that is, including all the Gods, has but one principle of life: sacrifice.
i) Every sacrifice is an immolation.
Causes . . . to acquiesce: samjnapayanti causative of sam-jna-, to agree, to consent. The sacrificial victim ought not to be led forcibly to its death, but made to accept it willingly.
Immolates: vishasati, from vi-shas-, to cut, to slaughter, thus to immolate.
ii) Reduced to nothingness: parabhuta (para-bhu-), to perish, disappear, be lost, succumb, yield, to vanish, to sustain a loss. Ontological nothingness entails being excommunicated from the sacrifice. Cf. § III B Antiphon for one sentence of this text in a different version.
Sacrificer: i.e., Agni, probably in his function as priest.
Drink together: sampibante, i.e., the Soma, shared feast; sampa, from the same root pa-, to drink.
Cf. SB I, 5, 2, 4; II, 3, 1, 20, which is the same text repeated (except for the last sentence).
iii) Sacrifice: yajna, hence the play on words at the end of the passage; going on: yan jayate, from which come the syllables that compose both yanja and yajna. The root i- suggests a cyclical conception.
He is born in being stretched out: sa tayamano jayate, sa yan jayate, with the idea of infinite extension and never-ending continuity.
iv) Principle of life: atman.
Sacrifice Is Man
i) The sacrifice is man. It is man [who offers it] because it is man who spreads it out and because, in being spread out, it assumes exactly the same stature as man. For this reason, the sacrifice is man.
ii) 1. When a man is born, whoever he may be, there is born simultaneously a debt to the Gods, to the sages, to the ancestors, and to men.
2. When he performs sacrifice it is the debt to the Gods which is concerned. It is on their behalf, therefore, that he is taking action when he sacrifices or makes an oblation.
3. And when he recites the Vedas it is the debt to the sages which is concerned. It is on their behalf, therefore, that he is taking action, for it is said of one who has recited the Vedas that he is the guardian of the treasure store of the sages.
4. And when he desires offspring it is the debt to the ancestors which is concerned. It is on their behalf, therefore, that he is taking action, so that their offspring may continue, without interruption.
5. And when he entertains guests, it is the debt to man which is concerned. It is on their behalf, therefore, that he is taking action if he entertains guests and gives them food and drink. The man who does all these things has performed a true work; he has obtained all, conquered all.
iii) When a man dies, they place him on the pyre; then he is born out of the fire and the fire burns only his body. Even as he is born from his father and mother, so he is born from the fire. The man who does not offer the agnihotra, however, does not pass to new life at all. Therefore it is very necessary to offer the agnihotra.
iv) Man, so soon as he is born, is to be regarded, his whole person, as a debt owed to death. When he performs sacrifice he is purchasing himself back from death.
v) Of a truth man is born three times over in the following way. First he is born from his mother and father. He is born a second time while performing the sacrifice that becomes his share. He is born a third time when he dies and they place him on the pyre and he proceeds to a new existence. Therefore they say: "Man is born three times."
vi) The question arises, "Which is the better, the man who sacrifices to the Self, or the man who sacrifices to the Gods?" "The man who sacrifices to the Self" must be the reply, for he who sacrifices to the Self is also the one who possesses the knowledge that through his sacrifice his body is brought to completion, through this sacrifice his body finds its proper place. Just as a snake rids itself of its dead skin, so the man who performs sacrifice rids himself of his mortal body, that is to say, of sin, and by dint of verses, formulas, Vedic melodies, and offerings takes possession of the heavenly realm.
vii) 1. There are five great sacrifices, namely, the great ritual services: the sacrifices to all beings, sacrifice to men, sacrifice to the ancestors, sacrifice to the Gods, sacrifice to Brahman.
2. Day by day a man offers sustenance to creatures; that is the sacrifice to beings. Day by day a man gives hospitality to guests, including a glass of water; that is the sacrifice to men. Day by day a man makes funerary offerings, including a glass of water; that is the sacrifice to the ancestors. Day by day a man makes offerings to the Gods, including wood for burning; that is the sacrifice to the Gods.
3. And the sacrifice to Brahman? The sacrifice to Brahman consists of sacred study.
i) The sacrifice is Man: purusho vai yajnah. Cf. CU III, 16, 1 (§ III 27). Man is of the same size as the altar. Cf. SB I, 2, 5, 14. And the altar is both the sacrifice and the center of the world. Cf. RV I, 164, 35 (§ I 11)
repeated in YV XXIII, 62. The same idea is repeated in SB III, 1, 4, 23, which, in addition to the identification between sacrifice and the word two verses before, makes a connection (matra) between yajna, purusha, and vac.
ii) 1. The text could also have the contrary meaning: the Gods, etc., owing the debt. Rnam ha vai jayate yo' sti.
iii) Cf. § III 16 concerning the agnihotra.
iv) Debt: rna.
v) Cf. § V A c for cremation rites and AV XII, 3 for cremation as a form of s