History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c51.35.3

v3.c51.35.3

All the doors of the sacrificial hall are screened with cloth, the wife's shed also is so screened and she is to sit in her shed (and not to see the mahāvīra,²⁵⁵⁷ but at a later stage she looks at it and repeats a mantra, Kāt. XXVI. 4. 13). Whatever wooden pātras are required in this rite they are²⁵⁵⁸ made of udumbara and the cords are made of muñja grass. The paridhis were thirteen and of vikaṅkata and the fuel-sticks for boiling the gharma were to be of the same wood or of khadira, palāśa, udumbara and a few other trees. There were three black antelope skins to be used as fans and two rukmas (plates or bars) of gold and silver, two vedas (bunches of kuśa), one of which has its ends cut off. Special rules are laid down about the clay out of which the mahāvīra vessel is to be made (vide Āp. XV. 1. 9 ff.) viz.²⁵⁵⁹ it was to be dug from a pit to the east of the āhavanīya fire; with that earth was to be mixed the dust dug by a wild boar and the clay from an ant-hill, pūtīka (a plant), the hair of a goat and of a black antelope skin; on it an ajā (she-goat) was to be milked. The clay so mixed is to be carried only by men of the higher castes and hot water is to be poured on the clay only from madantī vessels²⁵⁶⁰ in order to mix the various ingredients. No śūdra nor woman is to look at all this. Two vessels for milking the cow and the she-goat are made of this very clay.