The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s4.1.1

v1.c19.s4.1.1

The deity of the field as Kṣetrasya Pati, ‘lord of the field’, in the Rigveda¹ is invoked to grant cattle and horses, and with sweetness to fill heaven and earth, the plants, and the waters. In another hymn² he is asked, along with Savitṛ, the Dawns, and Parjanya to bestow prosperity, and elsewhere it is said that worshippers are fain to have him as a neighbour. The full nature of the deity is made clear in the Gṛhya ritual,³ which prescribes offerings to him when the field is ploughed, and he is, it is clear, no more than the deity believed to be in the ploughed land.⁴ Similarly the Rigveda contains an invocation of Sītā, the furrow, to grant rich blessings and crops.⁵ The figure of this goddess naturally has more life in the Sūtras,⁶ which deal with the operations of agriculture: she appears as the wife of Indra, which may be due to the fact that in the Rigveda⁷ the god is once called Urvarāpati, ‘lord of the plough field,’ and her existence is manifested in the four Sondergötter, the deities Sītā, Āçā, Araḍā, and Anaghā, who are to be worshipped at the furrow sacrifice, the threshing-floor sacrifice, the sowing of the crop, and the reaping and the putting the crop into the barn.⁸ In another Sūtra⁹ we have, beside the offering to Sītā and to three other deities, Yajā, Çamā, and Bhūti, who are less concrete than is she, offerings to the guardians of the furrow on the four sides;