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 14, Kaṇḍikā 20
[The Avabhṛtha]
1. The Adhvaryu should start with the procedure of the Avabhṛtha.
2. He should prepare the veda, strew round the sacred fires, wash his hands, arrange the utensils, strew the ulaparāji, prepare the two strainers and call out, “O sacrificer, do you restrain speech.”
3. He should himself restrain speech and touch the utensils.
4. He should pour out paddy for the cake on one potsherd for Varuṇa.
5. He should bake the cake (after having kneaded the flour) with water purified with the relevant yajus.[1]
6. He should pour down the wash-water on the Barhis itself which has already been strewn.
7. After having held erect the wooden sword, he should call out, “(O Āgnīdhra). do thou place the prokṣaṇī-water, cleanse the spoon and the ladles, and come up with the clarified butter.”
8. The procedure up to the taking up of clarified butter into the various ladles should be similar.[2]
9. He should take the clarified butter—four spoonfuls in each ladle within this very altar.
10. After having taken down the cake, he should offer on the Āhavanīya fire an oblation of clarified butter with the verse, “O Agni, do thou, giver of life, with clarified butter as thy face, with clarified butter as thy womb, approve of the oblation. After having consumed sweet, flavoury clarified butter made out of cow’s milk, do thou guard this (sacrificer) as father the son.”[3]
11. After the oblation has been offered, one should take the material necessary for the Avabhṛtha: the wooden sword, the vessel of clarified butter together with the spoon, the veda, the cake, clarified butter taken into the various ladles, the sediment of Soma, the two pressing boards, the earth of the mound, and all utensils besmeared with Soma except the four vessels,[4] in which Soma was taken.
12. The sacrificer should pull out the post of udumbara with the verse, “Releasing the sucking calf towards the mother-cow, the calf sucking the mother; may be grant us abundance of wealth and prosperity.”
13. The Adhvaryu should offer curds on the sediment of Soma,[5]
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
I.11.12.
[2]:
II.7.1 ff.
[3]:
Taittirīya-saṃhitā III.3.8.1. According to Āpastamba-śrauta-sūtra XIII.19.10; 20.1, also with the verse, avabhṛtha nicuṅkuṇa...,(Taittirīya-saṃhitā I.4.45)and with the formula, namo rudrāya vāstoṣpataye... (Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa III.7.9.7).