Satapatha-brahmana
by Julius Eggeling | 1882 | 730,838 words | ISBN-13: 9788120801134
This is Satapatha Brahmana XIII.2.3 English translation of the Sanskrit text, including a glossary of technical terms. This book defines instructions on Vedic rituals and explains the legends behind them. The four Vedas are the highest authortity of the Hindu lifestyle revolving around four castes (viz., Brahmana, Ksatriya, Vaishya and Shudra). Satapatha (also, Śatapatha, shatapatha) translates to “hundred paths”. This page contains the text of the 3rd brahmana of kanda XIII, adhyaya 2.
Kanda XIII, adhyaya 2, brahmana 3
[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]
1. Now, the gods did not know the Pavamāna[1] at the Aśvamedha to be the heavenly world, but the horse knew it. When, at the Aśvamedha, they glide along[2] with the horse for the Pavamāna (-stotra), it is for getting to know (the way to) the heavenly world; and they hold on to the horse's tail, in order to reach the heavenly world; for man does not rightly know (the way to) the heavenly world, but the horse does rightly know it
2. Were the Udgātṛ to chant the Udgītha[3], it would be even as if one who does not know the country were to lead by another (than the right) way. But if, setting aside the Udgātṛ, he chooses the horse for (performing) the Udgītha, it is just as when one who knows the country leads on the right way: the horse leads the Sacrificer rightly to the heavenly world. It makes 'Hiṅ[4],' and thereby makes the. Sāman itself to be 'hiṅ': this is the Udgītha. They pen up mares, (and on seeing the horse) they utter a shrill sound: as when the chanters sing, such like is this. The priests’ fee is gold weighing a hundred (grains): the mystic import of this has been explained[5].
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Pavamāna is the name of the pressed Soma while it is 'clarifying.' Hence the first stotra of each of the three Savanas of a Soma-day--chanted after the pressing of the Soma and the drawing of the principal cups--is called Pavamāna-stotra. Whether by the term 'Pavamāna' here the clarifying Soma is alluded to, as well as the stotra--which alone the commentator takes it to mean, and to which the second mention certainly refers--must remain p. 305 doubtful. The commentator, it would seem, accounts for this identification of the Pavamāna-stotra with heaven by the fact that the second day of the Aśvamedha is an ekaviṃśa day (see XIII, 3, 3, 3; Tāṇḍya-Br. XXI, 4, 1), i.e. one on which all the stotras are performed in the twenty-one-versed hymn-form; and that the Sun is commonly called 'ekaviṃśa,' the twenty-first, or twenty-one-fold. The particular chant intended is that of the morning pressing, viz. the Bahiṣpavamāna, or outside-Pavamāna-stotra, so-called because at the ordinary one-day's Soma-sacrifice, it is chanted outside the Sadas. But, on the other hand, in the case of Ahīna-sacrifices, or those lasting from two to twelve days, that stotra is chanted outside only on the first day, whilst on the others it is done inside the Sadas. An exception is, however, made in the case of the Aśvamedha, which requires the morning Pavamāna, on all three days, to be performed in its usual place on the north-eastern part of Vedi, south of the Cātvāla.
[2]:
For the noiseless way of sliding or creeping from the Sadas, and returning thither, and approaching the different Dhiṣṇyas, or fire-hearths, see part ii, p. 299, note 2. As has already been stated, it is only after the chanting of the Bahiṣpavamāna that the victims are driven up to the offering place.
[3]:
It is from this, the principal part of the Sāman, or chanted verse (cf. part ii, p. 310, note), that the Udgātṛ takes his name; this particular function of his being, on the present occasion, supposed to he performed by the whinnying of the horse. After this they make the horse step on the chanting-ground, apparently either as a visible recognition of the part it has been made to play, or because the horse thereby is made to go to heaven with which the Bahiṣpavamāna was identified.
[4]:
On the mystic significance of this ejaculation (here compared with the neighing of the horse) in the sacrifice, and especially in the Sāman, see I, 4, 1, 1 seqq.; II, 2, 4, 12.
[5]:
XII, 7, 2, 13.