Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c31.48

c31.48

While tradition thus clearly indicates that brahmanism was alien to the earliest Ailas, it yet offers very little suggestion as to what their religious practices were. It is said that Purūravas obtained sacrificial fire from the Gandharvas, learnt the way of making fire from aśvattha firesticks and sacrificed therewith, and that out of that fire he himself constituted three separate fires.² He and his successors therefore performed sacrifices of some kind, and appear to have sacrificed for themselves, for nothing is said of any priests in connexion with them, except that in a few late brahmanical tales or additions brahmans are made their priests. Thus, the Ṣoḍaśa-rājika says³ that Yayāti offered multitudes of various sacrifices and lavished wealth on the brahmans, but its description shows by its sacrificial anachronisms that it has been elaborated by late brahmanic hands, and in fact it greatly overdoes its eulogy of the kings for brahmanism.