Aitareyabrahmana 4.1

4.1

The gods indeed fashioned the thunderbolt for Indra by means of the first day; they cast it by means of the second day; they handed it over to him by means of the third day; he hurled it on the fourth day. Therefore he recites the ṣoḷaśin on the fourth day, for this ṣoḷaśin is indeed the thunderbolt. In that he recites the ṣoḷaśin on the fourth day, he hurls the thunderbolt as a weapon against his hateful rival, to fell him who is to be felled. The ṣoḷaśin is the thunderbolt, cattle are the ukthas; he recites it having placed it beyond the ukthas. In that he recites it having placed it beyond the ukthas, he encompasses cattle with the thunderbolt that is the ṣoḷaśin. Therefore cattle, encompassed by the thunderbolt that is the ṣoḷaśin, turn towards men. Therefore a horse or a man or a cow or an elephant, having been encompassed, turns back by himself when checked even only by speech, seeing the thunderbolt itself that is the ṣoḷaśin, encompassed by the thunderbolt that is the ṣoḷaśin. For speech is the thunderbolt; speech is the ṣoḷaśin. Regarding this they say: 'What is the ṣoḷaśin-ness of the ṣoḷaśin?' It is sixteenth of the stotras, sixteenth of the śastras; he begins it with sixteen syllables, he pronounces the praṇava with sixteen, he inserts a nivid of sixteen words: that is the ṣoḷaśin-ness of the ṣoḷaśin. Two syllables exceed when the ṣoḷaśin attains the anuṣṭubh. Those two are indeed the breasts of speech; they are truth and untruth. Truth protects him, untruth harms him not, who knows thus.