India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c11.s2.11

c11.s2.11

Reference is also made to *Dīrghasattra* or sacrifices extending over long periods of time, as a hundred or a thousand years (VII.3.1). No doubt the *Brāhmaṇa* texts describe such *yajñas*, *e.g.* Viśvasṛij, a *yajña* lasting for one thousand years (*sahasra-sama sattra*) described in the *Pañchaviṁśa Brāhmaṇa*, but we have the testimony of Patañjali saying that such long sacrifices were not actually performed (*loke aprayuktāḥ*), and that only the Yājñikas described them in their works as part of inherited tradition (*kevalam ṛishi-sampradāyo dharma iti kṛitvā Yājñikāḥ śāstreṇānuvidadhate*, *Bhāshya*, I.9, and *vār.* *Aprayukte dīrgha-sattravat*).