History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c53.4
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c53.4
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In this rite the victims are a reddish-white goat for the Aśvins, an ewe for Sarasvatī, and a bull for Indra Sutrāman (Śāṅ. XV. 15. 1-4, Āśv. III. 9. 2). A brief description of the method in which wine was prepared in the Sautrāmaṇī is given below from the Śat. Br. V. 5. 4, XII. 7. 2, Kāt. XV. 9. 28-30, XIX. 1-2 (and com. thereon). Rice-grains²⁶⁶¹ (or malted rice grains and malted barley or śyāmāka) germinated and ungerminated covered in linen cloth are purchased from an eunuch in exchange for lead, wool and fried grain for thread. This purchase takes place on the southern one of the vedis specially prepared for this rite near the peg called antaḥpātya on a hide. The rice grains are cooked in plenty of water and the malted barley grains are powdered and boiled. The water and scum are strained through woollen cloth. The hair of the lion, the wolf and the tiger are thrown into the mixture (this is symbolic of the characteristics of prowess, impetuosity and fury found in those wild beasts). Certain vegetable substances such as myrobalans, ginger, nutmeg (which serve as yeast and are mentioned in the note below), are powdered and boiled in plenty of water. The hot watery scum from the two pots of boiled rice and powdered barley is taken into two vessels and the extract of vegetables is poured in both of them, the mixture being called *māsara*.
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The boiled rice and barley are also mixed with the extract of powdered vegetables, put in a kumbhī (a big jar) along with contents of the māsara vessels and the jar is placed in a pit dug to the south-west of the sacrificial hall and kept there for three nights. On the first day the milk of one cow meant for Aśvins is poured into the kumbhī placed in the pit and powder of śaṣpa is added. The next day the milk of two cows meant for Sarasvatī is poured into the kumbhī and powder of tokma is added. On the third milk of three cows meant for Indra is added and also the powder of fried rice grains (lāja). To the west of the mound prepared on the southern vedi a pit is dug (outside the vedi according to com. on Kāt. XIX. 2. 7.) on which is spread bull's hide over which a sieve of bamboo is held and the liquid from the large jar is poured over the sieve (called kārotara).²⁶⁶² The wine thus purified is collected in a *sata* (a vessel of palāśa wood) and it is further purified by means of the hair of the tail of a cow and a horse. Of this purified wine the pratiprasthātṛ fills the cups for being offered to the three deities, viz. the Aśvins, Sarasvatī and Indra. Either one or three cups are filled for each of the three deities (Kāt. XV. 10. 13). This is done after the offering of the omentum and after mārjana. According to Āp. XIX. 2. 9-11 and Kāt. XV. 10. 12 powders of kuvala, karkandhū and badara fruits are added to the wine in the cups and they are offered in the dakṣiṇa fire (Kāt.
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XV. 10. 17). There was only one puronuvākyā, one praiṣa and one yājyā for all cups.²⁶⁶³ On the dakṣiṇa fire a vessel having a hundred holes covered with a hair strainer and gold and containing the remnants of the wine cups was hung by means of a *śikya* and the trickling drops of wine were offered to pitṛs called Somavat, Barhiṣad and Agniṣvātta with Vāj. S. XIX. 52-60. It is to be noted that the remnants of the wine were not drunk by the priests, but were either drunk by a brāhmaṇa hired for the purpose (Āp. XIX. 3. 3) or they were poured over an ant-hill. Āśv. (III. 9. 5-6) says that the priests muttered a verse (which is Vāj. S. XIX. 35) and only smelt the remnants of the wine offered (this is called prāṇabhakṣa). Śāṅ. notes that some teachers recited the puronuvākyā, yājyā and praiṣa in an entirely changed form (probably as directly mentioning only surā and not in the phraseology of soma) but it should not be so done, since that is a method fit only for asuras. From this one may plausibly argue that the Sautrāmaṇī was practised among Asuras (non-Aryan people or schismatics) and was adopted by the Vedic Aryans, with appropriate changes. But it is clear that the drinking of surā by priests was condemned even then.²⁶⁶⁴ Eggeling (in S. B. E. vol. 44 p. 246 n) does not appear to be right so far at least as the sūtra literature goes when he says that the priests drank the remnants of the wine cups (though the Śat. Br.
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uses the somewhat doubtful word 'bhakṣayanti' which in the sūtras also means 'smelling').