Varahashrautasutra 2.2.2

‘Auspicious to us is Agni when offered to; auspicious is the gift, fortunate, auspicious the sacred rite; auspicious too the praises / Auspicious too the praises; make an auspicious mind at the slaying of Vṛtra, whereby in battles [you are] victorious / Whereby in battles victorious, lay down the firm [weapons] of the many bold foes; may we win with your help’—with these [he places].

[With the verses] of the virāj metre: ‘Kindled, O Agni’, ‘These, O Agni’, and ‘The men have produced Agni with their thoughts from the two firesticks, moved by the hands, the praised one, far-seeing, master of the house, swift’.

With ‘Agni, him today’ on the south; with ‘I think of Agni the hotṛ’ aticchandas [verses] on the west.

With ‘You to us, O Agni’, ‘So you to us, O Agni’, ‘Thee, most radiant, shining one’, ‘For thus, O Agni’, ‘Truly thus, O Agni’, [he places] two-footed [verses/bricks] on the north.

Having placed a retaḥsic [brick], [he places] a viśvajyotiṣ [brick] with ‘May Parameṣṭhin seat you on the back of heaven, full of light’.

With ‘Adhidyau by name you are’, a circular [brick].

Having placed two seasonal [bricks], he places that [other brick].

With ‘Yavas, ayavas’, seven [bricks].

With the five anuvākas [beginning with] ‘You are the earth by birth’, sixty-nine [bricks].

Before the turns, he should append ‘Which divine brick you are’, [and] ‘Lying alongside’ after [them].

With ‘For the verse you’, ‘For the splendour you’, ‘For the radiance you’, ‘For the light you’, ‘For the brilliance you’, [he places] five ghee-balls.

With ‘Full behind and full in front, from the middle the full moon day has conquered; in her, when the gods enter together, in the highest firmament here let them rejoice’, [he places] the full-moon brick.

With ‘The Kṛttikās are the asterism’, twenty-nine asterism bricks from east to west; he should append ‘You are the splendours of Agni’.

Before the Viśākhās, with ‘The new-moon day, fortunate’, the new-moon brick; above the Bharaṇīs, the full-moon and the new-moon [bricks].

Having placed the bull [brick], he covers the layer with a lokaṃpṛṇā [brick].

With ‘You are heaven; grant me heaven’, [he places] a gold brick.

With ‘May Parameṣṭhin seat you on the back of heaven, spacious’, the adhvaryu [places] the naturally perforated [brick]; with ‘Snorting horse’, the pratiprasthātṛ [places] the vikarṇī gravel; they both place [them] simultaneously.

He has the sacrificer recite ‘May I stride into heaven’.

He does not scatter loose earth over the naturally perforated [brick].

The loose earth and subsequent rites are identical.

He who piles [the altar] for the first time should pile it knee-high; for the second time, navel-high; for the third time, chin-high; not higher than that.

[The altar] of a thousand [bricks] is the first; of two thousand, the second; of three thousand, the third.

Having divided [them] fivefold, he sprinkles the fully piled [altar] with a thousand gold chips, with the turns [beginning with] ‘You are of a thousand’.

He should append ‘Belonging to a thousand you are, to a thousand you’.

Thus ends the second section in the second chapter on the piling [of the fire altar].