The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c27.s5.2

v1.c27.s5.2

Libations of water, not of blood as in Greece, for the dead were evidently directly connected with the conception of the thirst of the Fathers. Wild products such as wheat or sesame were reserved for Rudra, sesame grains were peculiar to the dead, and a puerile desire to assimilate the offerings to the gods appears in the rules that for Night and Dawn an offering of milk from a black cow with a white calf was appropriate,¹ that for the dead should be used the milk of a cow which has lost its own and is bringing up a strange calf,² that black³ rice is the proper offering to Nirṛti,⁴ that cakes for Agni should be offered on eight, those for Indra on eleven, those for the Ādityas on twelve potsherds, because the metres connected with these deities have those numbers of syllables, and so on in unending detail.