Adhyāya II, Kaṇḍikā 1

1^[1]. On the full moon day of the Śrāvaṇa month the Śrāvaṇa ceremony (is performed).

2. Having filled a new jug with flour of fried barley, he lays (this jug) and a spoon for offering the Balis on new strings of a carrying pole (and thus suspends them).

3. Having prepared fried barley grains, he smears half of them with butter.

4. After sunset he prepares a mess of cooked food and a cake in one dish and sacrifices (the cooked food) with the four verses, 'Agni, lead us on a good path to wealth' (Rig-veda I, 189, 1 seqq.), verse by verse, and with his hand the (cake) in one dish with (the formula), 'To the steady One, the earth-demon, svāhā!'

5. (The cake) should be (entirely) immersed (into the butter), or its back should be visible.

6. With (the verse), 'Agni, do not deliver us to evil' (Rig-veda I, 189, 5) he sacrifices over it (the butter) in which it had lain.

7^[2]. With (the verse), 'May the steeds at our invocation be for a blessing to us' (Rig-veda VII, 38, 7) (he sacrifices) the besmeared grains with his joined hands,

8. The other (grains) he should give to his people.

9. Out of the jug he fills the spoon with flour, goes out (of the house) to the east, pours water on the ground on a clean spot, sacrifices with (the formula), 'To the divine hosts of the serpents svāhā!' and does reverence to them with (the formula), 'The serpents which are terrestrial, which are aerial, which are celestial, which dwell in the directions (of the horizon)—to them I have brought this Bali; to them I give over this Bali.'

10. Having gone round (the Bali) from left to right, he sits down to the west of the Bali with (the words), 'The serpent art thou; the lord of the creeping serpents art thou; by food thou protectest men, by cake the serpents, by sacrifice the gods. To me, being in thee, the serpents being in thee should do no harm. I give over the firm one (i.e. the spoon) to thee.'

11. 'Firm one, (I give) N.N. (in charge) to thee! Firm one, (I give) N.N. (in charge) to thee!'—with (these words he gives) his people, man by man, (in charge to the serpent god);

12. 'Firm one, I give myself in charge to thee!'—with these words himself at the end.

13. Let no one step between it (i.e. the Bali, and the sacrificer), until the giving in charge has been performed.

14^[3]. With (the formula), 'To the divine hosts of the serpents svāhā!'—let him offer the Bali in the evening and in the morning, till the Pratyavarohaṇa (i.e. the ceremony of the 'redescent').

15^[4]. Some count (the days till the Pratyavarohaṇa) and offer the corresponding number of Balis already on that day (on which the Śravaṇā ceremony is performed).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

1, 1. Nārāyaṇa's observation that the Śrāvaṇa full moon can fall also under certain other Nakṣatras than Śravaṇa itself, furnishes no reason why we should think here of solar months, as Prof. Stenzler proposes.

[2]:

7, 8. See above, Sūtra 3. 9. See above, Sūtra 1.

[3]:

On the Pratyavarohaṇa, see the third chapter of this Adhyāya.

[4]:

I.e. two Bali offerings for each day, one for the morning and one for the evening.