Chapter 6.10 - Horse sacrifice and its process

This is a sacrifice that the ancient kings performed for removing the ills facing them. On the head of the horse the victory sheet is tied and it is let free to go to any place it chooses. Anybody who stops will have to be defeated. The belief is that a king that performs 100 horse sacrifices will be eligible to get blessings from Indra.

In the Mahabharata Ashvamedha Parva is an internal or intermediary one. In it there is AnugitaParva which describes the process of horse sacrifice. At the end of the sacrifice, on each pillar particular animals and birds for different deities were tied as per the Shastras. As per the Shastra, bulls and water creatures were also tied to the pillars as per the rituals. Then 300 cows were tied to the pillars and the horses were tied in front of them. This was the order in which the sacrificial animals were tied up.

Other creatures were ritually cooked and the sacrificial horse was cut into pieces as per the requirements in the shastra. These pieces also were cooked. Dharmaputra and Draupadi sat near the cut up animal. The fat of the killed animal was burnt in the fire and inhaled the aroma of that smoke. Shastras say that smell destroys all sins. The other body parts of the horse were also burned in the fire.^[1]