Adhyāya III, Khaṇḍa 13

1^[1]. At the middle (Aṣṭakā) and in the middle of the rainy season,

2. The four Mahāvyāhṛtis (and) the four (verses), They who have thirsted' (Rig-veda X, 15, 9 seq.): having quickly recited (these verses) he shall sacrifice the omentum;

3. Or (he shall do so) with the verse, 'Carry the omentum, Jātavedas, to the Manes, where thou knowest them in the world of virtue. May streams of fat flow to them; may the wishes of the sacrificer be fulfilled. Svāhā!'

4. (Then follow) the four Mahāvyāhṛtis (and) the four (verses), 'They who have thirsted' (see Sūtra 2): (thus is offered) an eightfold oblation of cooked food, together with the cut-off portions.

5^[2]. Or, 'Interposed are the mountains; interposed is the wide earth to me. With the sky and all the points of the horizon I interpose another one instead of the father. To N.N. svāhā!

'Interposed to me are the seasons, and days and nights, the twilight's children. With the months and half-months I interpose another one instead of the father. To N.N. svāhā!

'With the standing ones, with the streaming ones. with the small ones that flow about: with the waters, the supporters of all I interpose another one instead of the father. To N.N. svāhā!

'Wherein my mother has done amiss, going astray, faithless to her husband, that sperm may my father take as his own; may another one fall off from the mother. To N.N. svāhā!'—these four (verses) instead of the Mahāvyāhṛtis, if (the sacrificer) is an illegitimate child.

6. Or milk-rice (should be offered).

7^[3]. On the next day the Anvaṣṭakya ceremony (i.e. ceremony following the Aṣṭakā) in accordance with the rite of the Piṇḍapitṛyajña.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

13, 1. On madhyāvarṣa, comp. Weber, loc. cit., pp. 331, 337. Nārāyaṇa understands not 'in the middle of the rainy season,' but 'in the middle of the year' (see his note, p. 146 of the German edition). I cannot help thinking that the word madhyāvarṣe, given by the MSS. here and in Pāraskara III, 3, 13, and explained by Nārāyaṇa, is a corrupt reading which we should correct into māghyavarṣe ('the festival celebrated during the rainy season under the Nakṣatra Maghās'), or something like that. The MSS. of Āśvalāyana-Gṛhya II, 5, 9 have māghyāvarṣaṃ, māghāvarṣaṃ, mādhyāvarṣaṃ. Viṣṇu (LXXVI, 1, comp. LXXVIII, 52, and Professor Jolly's note, Sacred Books of the East, VII, p. 240) mentions 'the three Aṣṭakās, the three Anvaṣṭakās, a Māgha day which falls on the thirteenth of the dark half of the month Prauṣṭhapada.' Comp. Manu III, 273, varṣāsu ca maghāsu ca; Yājñavalkya I, 260.

[2]:

Instead of 'N.N.' (the text has the feminine amuṣyai) the sacrificer inserts the name of his mother. For māsās, ardhamāsās I propose to read, māsais, ardhamāsais.

[3]:

On Anvaṣṭakya, comp. Bühler, S.B.E., XIV, p. 55; Jolly. loc. cit., p. 59.