A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.14

c7.14

In the Yajus Saṁhitās and the Brāhmaṇas the king's divinity is pre-eminently associated with his participation in the great political sacrifices. Thus the Śat. Br.,(§) in the course of its exposition of the Vājapeya and the Rājasūya, repeatedly identifies the royal sacrificer with the god Indra.(∥) Further, it describes two of the component rites of these grand eremonies as making the sacrificer identical with the god Prajāpati.∗ Another rite of the Vājapeya, which involves the mounting of the sacrificial post, is made the occasion of the utterance of the following prayer by the sacrificer and his wife: ‘We have become Prajāpati’s children’.† Yet another rite of the Vājapeya, that of consecration of the sacrificer by the priest, is declared to have the result of making the sacrificer the equal of Brihaspati, and it involves a direct intimation to the gods by the priest that the sacrificer has become one of them.‡ In the Rājasūya rite of adoration of the king, the priest is made to utter the words, “Thou art Mitra! Thou art Varuṇa!” Afterwards, there occurs a dialogue between the king and the four priests assembled on his four sides, in the course of which the former addressing the latter is greated in return as Brahman priest, Savitri, Indra, and Varuṇa.§