Bharadvaja-srauta-sutra

by C. G. Kashikar | 1964 | 166,530 words

The English translation of the Bharadvaja-Srauta-Sutra, representing some of the oldest texts on Hindu rituals and rites of passages, dating to at least the 1st millennium BCE. The term Srautasutra refers to a class of Sanskrit Sutra literature dealing with ceremonies based on the Brahmana divisions of the Veda (Sruti). They include Vedic rituals r...

Praśna 8, Kaṇḍikā 22

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1. (The Adhvaryu) should pour out grains for as many cakes on one potsherd as the members of the sacrificer’s family, as there were the karambha-pots.^[1]

2. He should arrange the potsherds in the northern half of the Gārhapatya fire.

3. Having poured clarified butter on these (cakes), or without having poured, he should take them down, and put them into one basket or two baskets or three baskets.

4. According to some teachers, the cakes should be carried being covered in a box.

5. The Adhvaryu should carry away a fumigating fire-brand from the Dakṣiṇa fire.^[2]

6. After having gone towards the north-east, he should put one cake on the earth excavated by a rat with the formula, “As many members of the house as we are, to them have I made prosperity. Thou art the welfare of the cattle, the welfare of the sacrificer; do thou grant me welfare. Rudra is the only one; he does not endure the other. The rat, O Rudra, is thy animal; do thou approve of it.”^[3]

7. Having enkindled the fire-brand at crossroads and having strewn the darbha-blades round that fire, he should spread clarified butter as base on the middle part of a palāśa tri-leaf or an extreme part of the same, take one portion from each of the cakes on one potsherd on the same, pour clarified butter on the oblation, and offer the same on the fire with the formula, “This is thy portion, O Rudra; together with thy sister Ambikā do thou rejoice in it.”^[4]

8. The sacrificer should follow the offering with the two verses, “(Do thou give) medicine for ox, for horse, for man, and medicine for us, medicine that be rich in healing, good for ram and sheep. We have appeased, O lady, Rudra the god Tryambaka; that he may make us prosperous; that he may increase our wealth; that be may make us rich in cattle; that he may embolden us.”^[5]

9. After having taken a cake on one potsherd each, the family-members of the sacrificer should go round the crossroads by the right three times with the verse, “We make offering to Tryambaka, the fragrant, increaser of prosperity. May I be loosened, like a cucumber from its stem, from death, not from immortality.”^[6]

10. Even a daughter, who is desirous of a husband, should go round with the verse, “We make offering to Tryambaka, the fragrant, giving a husband. May I be loosened, like a cucumber from its stem, from here, not from the husband.”

11. They should throw them (= the cakes) up and catch again.^[7]