Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s8.9

c12.s8.9

In the *Majjhimanikāya* (I, pp. 342-44) there is the true picture of how sacrifices used to be performed. It is in way of explaining that kind of puggala (individual) which practises self-mortification, and for self-chastisement sacrifices animals and causes sufferings to other beings. ‘This kind of puggala’, the text says, ‘includes the king or the kṣatriya noble whose head has been anointed (muddhāvasitto) as well as the wealthy Brahmins (Brāhmaṇo mahāsālo). He gets a sacrificial shed (santhāgāra) built outside the town, shaves his hair and beard, puts on deer skin, lubricates his body with mustard oil and enters the sacrificial shed, accompanied by his chief queen and his Brahmin priest, rubbing his body with an antelope horn. He then prepares his own bed on the bare ground and lives on cow's milk. The queen and the priest also live on milk. A part of the milk goes to the sacrificial fire and the rest goes to the calves. He then orders : kill so many bulls for the sacrifice, kill so many he-calves, so many she-calves, so many goats, so many rams, all for the sacrifice ; fell so many trees for the yūpa, pluck so much kuśa grass for the barhis. His servants, messengers, workers, all make the preparation either with tears in their eyes or weeping for fear of punishment or chastisement.' The confirmation of this account is found in the Śrauta manuals. They clearly show that the Pāli description is a true and objective picture of the Śrauta ritual as practised in those days.