Shantikamalakara 3.1.9

3.1.9

“In a Lakṣahoma, the pit should have the vulva-mouth and three steps. / The first step should be made two fingers high by the wise, / the second there is declared to be two fingers high; / the third is four fingers in both height and breadth. / A breadth of four fingers is also commended for the preceding two. / To the north-east of it, [one should prepare] an area measuring three spans, / sloping toward the north-east, likewise square and level. / The raised platform was declared by Viśvakarman to be half the diameter in height, / adorned with two tiers for the installation of the gods. / The first tier is declared to be two fingers high; / then above it two tiers are said to have an elevation of three fingers. / A width of two fingers for all of them is declared by the wise. / The wall of the platform above that should be ten fingers high. / On that, one should invoke the gods upon white rice grains as before.” One who desires prosperity should also install Garuḍa additionally there. Nor is he to be installed at the eastern side of the whole altar, according to the principle: “At the end, according to Bādarāyaṇa.” The mantras for that invocation are: “O you whose body is the sound of the Sāman, mount of the Supreme Lord, / ever removing poison and sin, therefore grant me peace!” Or the reading is: “remover of poison.” Having consecrated the pitcher as before, he should perform the fire oblation in the same manner. Having offered a hundred thousand [oblations], with the number of firewood sticks and so forth as before, having offered firewood sticks, ghee, and boiled grain offering as before, and having offered the oblation whose deity is Garuḍa with “You are the well-winged Garutmān…,” one should perform the Lakṣahoma with the sacred utterances (vyāhṛtis); this is the meaning. Mantra: “Om, you are the well-winged Garutmān; the trivṛt is your head, the Gāyatrī your eye, the stoma your breath, the Sāman your body, the Vāmadevya [and] the Bṛhat and Rathantara your wings, the yajñāyajñiya your tail, the metres your limbs, the altars your claws, the Yajus verses your name. You are the well-winged Garutmān; go to heaven, fly to the celestial realm!”