The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.168

v1.c17.168

The development in religion and philosophy in the period is remarkable. The ritual has grown to very large proportions; and with the ritual the number of the priests required at a sacrifice had increased until sixteen or seventeen are enumerated as taking part in the more important offerings. The mere offerings of vegetable food and milk are comparatively unimportant; but the animal sacrifice is increasingly elaborated, and the Soma sacrifice has developed largely. In addition to the simplest form of the Soma sacrifice occupying one day, there are innumerable other forms culminating in the Sattras which might last any time from twelve days to a year or years. It is significant that, at the bottom of this priestly elaboration, is much really popular religion. Thus the Rājasūya, or royal consecration, is fundamentally a popular rite for the anointing of the king: the Vājapeya betrays a popular origin in the prominence in it of a chariot race, once probably the main element; the Gavāmayana, a Sattra lasting a year, is distinguished by the ritual of the Mahāvrata day in which long since was recognised a primitive performance celebrating the winter solstice. The horse-sacrifice is at bottom the elaboration of a simple rite of sympathetic magic; but it has been so elaborated as to combine everything which could make an appeal to the warrior Indian king and induce him to distribute abundant largesse on the celebrators. But beside these and other popular festivals, which the priests have worked over, stands one of the highest interest to the priest, which seems to reflect a new conception of theology. It is the building of the altar for the sacred fire; in one sense no doubt this was an ancient and simple rite, accompanied as so often by the slaying of a man in order to secure the abiding character of the structure: the Brāhmaṇa texts avoid requiring any such actual slaughter, though they record it as a deed of the past; but they elaborate the building out of all reason and utility. The only explanation of this action must be that offered by Eggeling¹, that, in the building up of the fire altar, the Brāhmans sought to symbolise the constitution of the unity of the universe. As we have seen, in the Purusha hymn of the Rigveda occurs the conception of the creation of the universe from the Purusha, and in the theology of the Brāhmaṇas the Purusha is identified with Prajāpati, 'lord of creatures,' and the sacrifice is conceived as constantly recurring in order to maintain the existence of the universe. To render this possible is the end of the fire altar, the building of which is the reconstruction of the universe in the shape of Prajāpati. Prajāpati, again, is identified with Agni, the fire of the altar, and both Prajāpati and Agni are the divine counterparts of the human sacrificer. But Prajāpati is himself Time, and Time is in the long run death, so that the sacrificer himself becomes death, and by that act rises superior to death, and is for ever removed from the world of illusion and trouble to the world of everlasting bliss. In this the true nature of Prajāpati and of the sacrificer is revealed as intelligence, and the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa urges the seeker for truth to meditate upon the self, made up of intelligence and endowed with a body of spirit, a form of light and an ethereal nature.