Aitareyabrahmana 2.3

2.3

"Should the sacrificial post stand, or should one throw it after?" they ask. It should stand for one who desires cattle. Cattle did not stand still for the gods to be seized for food. Moving away, they stood continually crying out: "You shall not seize us! Not us!" Then the gods saw this sacrificial post as a vajra [and] raised it up against them. Fearing it, they turned back; even today they turn toward it. Then cattle stood still for the gods to be seized for food. Cattle stand still to be seized for food for him who knows thus and for whom, knowing thus, the sacrificial post stands. One should throw it after for one who desires the heavenly world. The ancients indeed used to throw it after, thinking: "The sacrificer is the sacrificial post; the sacrificer is the prastara grass; Agni is the womb of the gods. Arising from Agni, the womb of the gods, through the oblations, golden-bodied, he will go upwards to the heavenly world." Now those who came after them saw this svaru, the chip of the sacrificial post. One should throw that after at that time. Thereby that desire is obtained which lies in throwing after, and that desire is obtained which lies in [letting it] stand. He who is consecrated offers himself up to all deities. Agni is all deities; Soma is all deities. In that he offers the animal victim for Agni and Soma, the sacrificer redeems himself from all the deities. They say regarding this: "The [victim] for Agni and Soma should be of two colours, for it belongs to two deities." That is not to be respected. It should be made plump, as it were. Cattle are plump in form, while the sacrificer indeed becomes lean, as it were. In that the animal victim is plump, he thereby enriches the sacrificer with its own fatness. They say regarding this: "One should not eat of the animal victim for Agni and Soma; he who eats of the animal victim for Agni and Soma eats of man, for the sacrificer redeems himself by it." That is not to be respected. The victim for Agni and Soma is a Vṛtra-slaying sacrificial offering. With Agni and Soma Indra slew Vṛtra; the two said to him: "With us two you have slain Vṛtra; let us choose a boon from you." [Indra said:] "Choose!" They chose this very boon: the animal victim on the day of the Soma extraction. This is their unchanging share, for it was chosen by them as a boon. Therefore, one must indeed eat of it and desire to obtain it.