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The Hindu Temple v1.c6.s1: Agni-Prajāpati and Vāstupuruṣa

The Hindu Temple v1.c6.s1

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Agni-Prajāpati and Vāstupuruṣa

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Prajāpati is offered up anew in every sacrifice; and inasmuch as the very dismemberment of the Lord of creatures which took place at that archetypal sacrifice, was in itself the creation of the universe, so every sacrifice is also a repetition of that first creative act.⁵ The Yajamāna, the sacrificer, who is the performer or patron of the sacrifice, by performing it becomes identified with Prajāpati by building up his body,—the altar,—just as the gods had done in the beginning when they restored Prajāpati, exhausted in creation.

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⁵ SBE. vol. XLIII. Introduction.

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As they had done in the beginning, so is required a new and ever renewed sacrifice to build up the body of the Lord of creatures exhausted and dismembered by his sacrifice, and by the sacrifice renew the body, restore the Lord of creatures and keep up the unbroken sequence of an ever renewed universe in the analogy of the year that spends itself in its productiveness and out of its death arises anew. In building up the sacrificial body, the altar, the sacrificer in so doing becomes the very altar itself; he builds for himself a sacrificial body and by doing so he is beyond time and death.⁶

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⁶ Ś.B. VIII. 5. 2.

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He builds up the altar in the likeness of the Universe and in accordance with his measure (vyāma). By this link it is his, a transformed, sacrificial body (Ś.B. I. 2. 5. 14; Āp. Ś.S. XVI. 17. 8).⁷ Built into it at the same time is another measure, that of time. Measure is expressed by number. As many seasons as there are in the year, so many layers has the altar; and further, the total number of the surrounding bricks of the requisite altars is 360. By number the year is built into the altar and is its substance. This is reinforced with grosser identities; the sacrificial victim, man and his successive substitutes (Ś.B. I. 2. 3. 6-7), horse, bull, ram, and the goat, mingled in the mortar, their heads originally having been placed in the first layer of the altar⁸; built into, and one with the substance of the altar, the sacrificer, as victim is his transformed self in the symbol of the golden man immured in the altar. In gold, purest of all substances, man (puruṣa) the sacrificer, is one with the Puruṣa; their conjoint effigy, the golden figure, is sacrificial man; symbolical, without arms; the arms are the sacrificial spoons laid down on either side of the golden man. Were arms made, this would be redundant.⁹

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The sacrificer puts down the golden man, laying him on his back (uttāna). He lays him down with his head towards the East, for (with the head) towards the East this Agni (the Fire altar) is built up (Ś.B. VII. 4. 1, 15; 18).¹⁰

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¹⁰ The sacrificer is to lie down so as to cover the gold man; this rite of identification is allusive by its performance as the gold man is by its form. ¹¹ They are five in number; the 4 regions and the upward (Ś.B. VI. 1. 2. 19). ¹² With reference to man, the microcosm, and his body, the several classes of bricks laid down in the layers of the Agni, are explained in Ś.B. VII. 5. 1.

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The Fire altar is oriented towards the East, the direction of the sunrise, the ever new beginning. It is piled up, a square to start with, facing the four regions and the one above. They are bodily parts of Prajāpati, the year.¹¹ The altar is built of bricks. They are Agni's limbs, his joints (Ś.B. VI. 1. 2. 31). Similarly, the area between the Āhavanīya and Gārhapatya altar has two 'spines' (Ś.B. VII. 1. 2. 14), the middle lines from East to West (the prācī which is the 'pṛṣthyā', Ś.B. III. 5. 1. 9) and the other from South to North. When Agni is laid down as the Gārhapatya hearth, the four bricks in the middle, are the body. Two at the back are added: these are the thighs and two in front, the arms; where the body is that (includes) the head (Ś.B. VII. 1. 1. 18).¹²

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Agni, the sacrificial fire and the place where it is lighted are one. The altar with its structure, with its fire, is called Agni. Its function is to carry up the sacrifice, so that it reaches its destination beyond time and death. The Fire is the actual performer of the sacrifice in which it is assisted by the sacrificer; his sacrificial self is one in nature with the burning flame; it consumes the lower self of the sacrificial victim; Agni is the sacrifice of the Yajamāna, and of Prajāpati, the year, of the contingent aspect of the Supreme Principle. Agni, whose emblem is the flame consumes itself, as sacrificial victim. He ‘enters’ the five animals, or sacrificial victims, man, bull, horse, ram, he-goat. He becomes those five animals (Ś.B. VI. 2. 1. 2-3). The conversion of their natures imbues the bricks which form Agni’s limbs and joints.

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¹⁶ "This then, is, as it were, an ascent away from here; but this earth is the foundation." ⁷ "Let the altar measure a fathom (vyāma) across on the western side. That namely is the size of man and the altar should be of man's size." 'Tait. Saṃh', V. 2. 5.

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¹ "With man's measure he metes out; man is commensurates with the sacrifice." ⁸ Ś.B. VII. 5. 2. 1. ⁹ Ś.B. VII. 4. 1. 45; 'Taitt. Saṃh.' V. 2. 8. ¹⁰ 'Kātyāyana Śrauta Sūtra', XVII. 4.

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³⁵ The Svayamātṛṇā, the lower immanent breaths; the Dviyajus, the hip; the Retaḥsic bricks, the ribs; the Viśvajyotis

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The goat is the last of the sacrificial animals. Into it has passed the sacrificial essence of man from whom it went to the horse; and then to the bull, and finally to the he-goat. The goat remains the sacrificial animal, the victim for all others, the animal consumed by and transformed into Agni. It is Agni, who is sacrificed as animal victim (Ś.B. XIII. 2. 7. 13; ‘Vāj. S.’ XXIII. 17). “Agni was an animal. They sacrificed him and he gained that world wherein Agni (ruleth); That shall be thy world, that thou shalt gain”. The goat is the animal-form of Agni; it is produced from Agni’s heat (Ś.B. VII. 5. 2. 36). This is Agni’s heat and also that of Prajāpati. The he-goat means Prajāpati. Prajāpati, the finite form of the Puruṣa, is one with Agni and the Fire Altar (Ś.B. VI. 1. 1. 5), and as all-offered, self-offered victim he is one with the goat, which as accepted offering, burnt up in its animal nature and transmuted substance, is un-born’ (aja), uncreate.¹³ It is from there that the gods went to the Godhead, to the summit (Ś.B. VII. 5. 2. 36).

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¹³ Speech is Aja, “uncreate”. Speech, the Word is the Veda, Primordial Knowledge, which is ‘unborn’ and eternal. The letters of the alphabet are articulate sound and are the body of the word. The 51 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet are known to be distributed over India, as Pīṭhas of Śakti. As signs which stand for articulate manifestation in its several degrees and parts, the letters (of the rhythmic formulae, mantra) are inscribed in ritual diagrams (yantra). Re. the letters inscribed in the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala, see ‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’ XIV. 32-35. ‘Tantrarāja-tantra’, ‘Manoramā’, comm. XXV. 8-10.

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The identification of the sacrificer and of the act and material of the sacrifice with Agni-Prajāpati or Puruṣa manifested, rests on a middle term¹⁴ which comprises the structural altar and the sacrificial victim. The building of the one and the transmutation of the other are the means by which is cancelled the initial disintegration which is the beginning of the universe. Prajāpati having spent himself and fallen down exhausted, is re-built. The work of architecture is one of restoration of his body. The body of Agni-Prajāpati is a universal symbol. Its images are those of the first and last of sacrificial victims, man and goat; while bricks, and parts of the victims are embedded in its gross substance, number and measure constitute the subtle substance of its plan and structure. By its number it is a monument to time which is regulated, bounded and overcome. In the extent of the Fire altar, time going round is caught, embodied and mastered in the identity of the sacrificer and Agni-Prajāpati laid out from East to West.

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¹⁴ P. Mus, BEFEO. XXXIV. p. 234.

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bricks, the breast-bone; the Ṛtavya bricks between the shoulders, the Āṣāḍha, the neck, and the Kūrma, the head.

Cites (5)