Kanda V, adhyaya 1, brahmana 2

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

1. He draws the Aṃśu^[1] (graha), just for completeness’ sake, for it is therefor that he draws the Aṃśu. After that he draws those recognised Agniṣṭoma cups^[2] up to the Āgrayaṇa.

2, He then draws the Pṛṣṭhyas^[3]: and whatever the gods (Agni, Indra, and Sūrya) won by them, even that he wins by them.

3. He then draws the Ṣoḍaśin: and whatever Indra won thereby, even that he (the sacrificer) wins thereby.

4. He then draws those five Vājapeya cups (for Indra; the first) with the text (V. S. IX, 2), 'Thee, the firm-seated, the man-seated, the mind-seated! Thou art taken with a support^[4]: I take thee, agreeable to Indra! This is thy womb' (i.e. thy home): thee, most agreeable to Indra!' therewith he deposits it; for of these worlds this one, to wit the earth, is the firm one: this same world he thereby wins.

5. [The second with,] 'Thee, the water-seated, the ghee-seated, the ether-seated! Thou art taken with a support: I take thee, agreeable to Indra! This is thy womb: thee most agreeable to Indra!' therewith he deposits it; for among these worlds that ether (mentioned in the formula) is this air: he thereby wins this air-world.

6. [The third with,] 'Thee, the earth-seated, the air-seated, the sky-seated, the god-seated, the heaven-seated! Thou art taken with a support: I take thee, agreeable to Indra! This is thy womb: thee, most agreeable to Indra!' therewith he deposits it; for god-seated, heaven-seated indeed is yonder world of the gods: the world of the gods he thereby wins.

7. [The fourth with V. S. IX, 3,] 'The waters’ invigorating essence, being contained in the sun,--that which is the essence of the waters’ essence, that, the most excellent, I take for you! Thou art taken with a support: I take thee, agreeable to Indra! This is thy womb: thee, most agreeable to Indra!' therewith he deposits it; for the waters’ essence is he that blows (or purifies) yonder (the wind), and he is contained in the sun, he blows from the sun: that same essence he thereby wins.

8. [The fifth with IX, 4,] 'Ye cups, of strengthening libations, inspiring the sage with thought,--I have gathered together the pith and sap of you, the handleless! Thou art taken with a support: thee, agreeable to Indra! This is thy womb: thee, most agreeable to

Indra!' therewith he deposits it;--pith means essence: it is the essence he thereby wins.

9. These, then, are five Vājapeya cups he draws; for he who offers the Vājapeya wins Prajāpati; and Prajāpati is the year, and there are five seasons in the year,--he thus wins Prajāpati: therefore he draws five Vājapeya cups.

10. He (the Adhvaryu) then draws seventeen (other) cups of Soma, and (the Neṣṭṛ) seventeen cups of Surā (spirituous liquor), for to Prajāpati belong these two (saps of) plants, to wit the Soma and the Surā;--and of these two the Soma is truth, prosperity, light; and the Surā untruth, misery, darkness: both these (saps of) plants he thereby wins; for he who offers the Vājapeya wins everything here, since he wins Prajāpati, and Prajāpati indeed is everything here.

11. Now as to why he draws seventeen cups of Soma;--Prajāpati is seventeenfold, Prajāpati is the sacrifice^[5]: as great as the sacrifice is, as great as is its measure, with that much he thus wins its truth, its prosperity, its light.

12. And why he draws seventeen cups of Surā;--Prajāpati is seventeenfold, Prajāpati is the sacrifice: as great as the sacrifice is, as great as is its measure, with that much he thus wins its untruth, its misery, its darkness.

13. These two amount to thirty-four cups; for there are thirty-three gods, and Prajāpati is the thirty-fourth: he thus wins Prajāpati.

14. Now when he buys the king (Soma), he at the same time buys for a piece of lead the Parisrut (immature spirituous liquor) from a long-haired man near by towards the south. For a long-haired man is neither man nor woman; for, being a male, he is not a woman; and being long-haired (a eunuch), he is not a man. And that lead is neither iron nor gold; and the Parisrut-liquor is neither Soma nor Surā^[6]: this is why he buys the Parisrut for a piece of lead from a long-haired man.

15. And on the preceding day they prepare two earth-mounds^[7], the one in front of the axle, and the other behind the axle: 'Lest we should deposit together the cups of Soma, and the cups of Surā,'--this is why, on the preceding day, they prepare two mounds, one in front, and the other behind the axle.

16. Now, when they take the Vasatīvarī water^[8] (into the havirdhāna shed) by the front door, the Neṣṭṛ takes in the Parisrut-liquor by the back door. From the south they bring in the drinking vessels. The Adhvaryu, seated in front of the axle, with his face towards the west, draws the cups of Soma; and the Neṣṭṛ, seated behind the axle, with his face towards the east, draws the cups of Surā. The Adhvaryu draws a cup of Soma, the Neṣṭṛ a cup of Surā; the Adhvaryu draws a cup of Soma, the Neṣṭṛ a cup of Surā: in this way they draw them alternately.

17. Neither does the Adhvaryu hold the Soma-cup beyond the axle towards the back, nor the Neṣṭṛ the Surā-cup beyond the axle towards the front, thinking, 'Lest we should confound light and darkness!'

18. The Adhvaryu holds the Soma-cup just over the axle, and the Neṣṭṛ the Surā-cup just below the axle, with (V. S. IX, 4), 'United ye are: unite me with happiness!' Thinking, 'Lest we should say "evil",' they withdraw them again, with, 'Disunited ye are: disunite me from evil!' Even as one might tear a single reed from a clump of reed-grass, so do they thereby tear him from out of all evil: there is not in him so much sin as the point of a grass-blade. They deposit the two (cups each time on the mounds).

19. Thereupon the Adhvaryu draws the Madhu-graha (honey-cup) in a golden vessel, and deposits it in the middle of the Soma-grahas. He then draws the Ukthya, then the Dhruva. And when, at the last chant (of the evening press feast^[9]), he has poured those Soma-grahas one by one into the cups of the officiating priests, they make offering and drink them. At the midday-pressing it is told regarding the honey-cup, and the cups of Surā: thereof then^[10].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Regarding this cup, or libation (consisting, it would seem, of imperfectly pressed Soma-plants in water), see part ii, p. 424, note 1. Here, and in the sequel, the author only refers to those points of ceremonial in which the performance differs from that of the ordinary Agniṣṭoma sacrifice, as described in part ii.

[2]:

Viz. the Upāṃśu and Antaryāma; the Aindravāyava, Maitrāvaruṇa and Āśvina; the Śukra and Manthin; and the Āgrayaṇa. Part ii, pp. 256 seq.

[3]:

That is, the three Atigrāhyas (part ii, p. 402, note 2), required for the Pṛṣṭha-stotras at the midday feast, when performed in their proper 'pṛṣṭha' form, as they are at the Pṛṣṭhya ṣaḍaha, and at a Viśvajit-ekāha with all the Pṛṣṭhas. See IV, 5, 4, 24. The authorities of the Black Yajus adopt a somewhat different arrangement. The Vājapeya cups are likewise called by them Atigrāhyas (Taitt. S. I, 7, 22; T. B. I, 3, 9), and these are apparently drawn by them immediately after the second of the ordinary three Atigrāhyas, the one belonging to Indra (T. S. vol. i, p. 996,--but see ib. p. 1955, where it is stated that they are drawn immediately after the Āgrayaṇa,--that is, probably, if the ordinary Atigrāhyas are not required). Then follows (the third ordinary Atigrāhya?), then the Ṣoḍaśin, and thereupon the seventeen cups for Prajāpati.--Sāyaṇa remarks on our passage,--teṣām (atigrāhyāṇām) prakṛtigatā tritvasaṃkhyaiva śākhāntaravat saṃkhyāntarānupadeśāt. MS. I. O. 657.

[4]:

For an explanation of these notions, see part ii, p. 260, notes 1 and 2.

[5]:

See I, 5, 2, 17, where the principal formulas used in making oblations are computed as consisting together of seventeen syllables. Pañc. Br. 18, 6 insists especially on the symbolic identity of Prajāpati and the Vājapeya on the double ground that the Vājapeya consists of seventeen stotras, and has for its characteristic mode of chanting the Saptadaśa-stoma, or seventeen-versed hymn. That this is indeed so will appear from a glance at the chief chants. The Bahiṣpavamāna-stotra, which in the ordinary Agniṣṭoma is chanted in the trivṛt-stoma, consisting of three triplets, or nine verses (see part ii, p. 310), is at the Vājapeya made to consist of seventeen verses, by the insertion of eight verses (S.V. II, 180-82; 186-90) between the second and third triplets. Again, the Mādhyandina-pavamāna, ordinarily chanted in fifteen verses (part ii, p. 333), here consists of seventeen, viz. II, 105-7 (sung twice in two tunes = six verses); II, 663 (one verse); II, 663-4 (sung as triplet, in two tunes = six verses); II, 663, in a different tune again (one verse); II, 821-23 p. 9 (three verses)--making together seventeen verses. Similarly, the Ārbhava-pavamāna (chanted at the Agniṣṭoma also in the Saptadaśa-stoma, cf. part ii, p. 315; but here with modifications) consists of II, 165-7 (sung twice in two tunes = six verses); II, 42, 44 (two verses); II, 47-9 (in two tunes = six verses); II, 720-22 (three verses)--making together seventeen verses. For the similarly constructed Vājapeya hymn see page 11, note 1. See also Lāṭy. Śr. VIII, 11, 15 seq., where the number of officiating priests, as well as that of the various sacrificial fees, is fixed at seventeen. Similarly, Āśv. Śr. IX, 9, 2-3 says that there are either to be seventeen dikṣās, or the whole ceremony is to be performed in seventeen days.

[6]:

According to Sāyaṇa, the difference between surā and parisrut would seem to be that the former beverage is prepared from mature shoots (of rice, &c.), and the latter from such as are not quite ripe.

[7]:

The mounds (khara) thrown up in the havirdhāna cart-shed, are used for placing the cups of Soma (and Surā) after they are drawn, until they are used for the libations. See the plan of the sacrificial ground at the end of part ii; only that on the present occasion there is to be a second mound, for the placing of the Surā-cups, under or just behind the axle of the southern Soma-cart (in the place where the Nārāśaṃsa cups to the Fathers were temporarily deposited at the Agniṣṭoma; see III, 6, 2, 25 with note). On this occasion a small door is also made in the southern wall of the cart-shed, by breaking through the hurdle.

[8]:

Part ii, p. 222 seq.

[9]:

The last chant (at the evening feast) of the Vājapeya sacrifice is the so-called Vājapeya-sāman, or Bṛhat-stotra (Sāmav. II, 975-7), chanted, to the Bṛhat tune, in the Saptadaśa-stoma; the three verses being, by repetitions, raised to the number of seventeen.--'When he has poured . . . they offer it:' this is apparently a case of the absolute construction of the gerund in '-ya,' cf. Delbrück, Altindische Syntax, p. 108.

[10]:

On these cups, or libations, see V, I, 5, 28.