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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c30.s13: § 13. The Vājapeya or Drink-of-Strength

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c30.s13

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§ 13. The Vājapeya or Drink-of-Strength

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The Vājapeya¹ is of especial interest in that it preserves, despite the formalism imposed upon it by its inclusion in the Soma ritual, many traces of very popular origin. It is said by many authorities to be a festival of the autumn, and it is also allowed either to perform it independently, or as the sixth day of a Sarvamedha or universal sacrifice. It consists of one pressing day and at least 13 days of consecration and three Upasad days, so that it takes up at least 17 days and may be spun out to a year. It adds to the ordinary Ṣoḍaçin form a seventeenth Stotra and Çastra, and the number seventeen is also introduced into the Bahiṣpavamāna and Mādhyandinapavamāna Stotras in place of the Trivṛt and Pañcadaça Stomas there normally used. The number of cups in the ordinary rite is increased by the addition of the Aṅçu and Adābhya, and also five Vājapeya or Aindra cups; there are added a dappled barren cow for the Maruts, and seventeen goats for Prajāpati, hornless but capable of procreation. The sacrificer, his wife, and the priest all wear garlands of gold, which form the fees. The special features of the rite begin with the midday pressing, at which a warrior with seventeen arrows measures out a course for a race, marking the place where the last falls with a twig of Udumbara. Then three horses of the sacrificer are yoked to his chariot, sixteen others are yoked with four horses each, and the sacrificer is victorious in a formal race, during which 17 drums are beaten, and the Brahman climbs up a post, on which is fastened a wheel of Udumbara wood, to sing the Sāman of the strong steeds, while the wheel is turned to the right. The horses are given, before and after the race, the offering to Bṛhaspati to smell, to gain its strength. In the second place, along with the cups of Soma there are offered by the Neṣṭṛ alternatively cups of Surā, which are purchased from a long-haired man and placed in a special place. Mention is also made of a cup of honey, which is not used for any offering, but is placed in the hand of a Kṣatriya or Vaiçya competitor, and seems to be an unintelligible remainder of an older rite. In the third place, the sacrificer for himself and his wife solemnly mounts to the sun by climbing with the aid of a ladder to the top of the sacrificial post which is decorated by placing on it a wheel-shaped garland of meal, in which position he is touched by the priest or others with salt in Açvattha leaves. He then descends and sits on a throne, and is sprinkled with a mixture of water, milk, and seventeen other substances, or so many as can be thought of, with the exception of one of which he never again eats. The rest of the mixture is used for certain libations called Vājaprasavīya, and the festival closes with seventeen Ujjitis, ‘benedictions’, which can be accompanied by libations.

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¹ ApÇS. xviii; BÇS. xi; KÇS. xiv; ĀÇS. ix. 9; ÇÇS. xv. 1 ff.; xvi. 17. 1 ff.; LÇS. v. 12. 8–25; viii. 11, 12; Vait. xxvii; Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* i. 247 ff.; Weber, *Über den Vājapeya* (SBA. 1892, pp. 765 ff.); Eggeling, SBE. xli. pp. xxiii ff. For parallels see von Schroeder, *Arische Religion*, ii. 191, 395, 650, cf. 349 ff.; 379. Cf. N. N. Law, *Ancient Indian Polity*, pp. 160 f., 177 ff.; Keith, *Taittirīya Saṁhitā*, i. pp. cviii ff.

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The name of the offering is explained by tradition as ‘food and drink’, by Oldenberg¹ as ‘the drink of strength’, and by Weber as ‘the protection of strength’. The last rendering is clearly to be rejected: the drink which Weber denies to be seen in the offering is the Soma, and we cannot assume that the name is older than the use of Soma in the rite. It is important to note that the rite could, it is clear from scattered notices, be used by a Vaiçya and not merely by a Brahman or a Kṣatriya, but it is also clear that the offering was connected with the attainment of high prosperity, and it may well be that it was intended to be offered only by one who was in the technical sense a *gataçrī*, ‘who had attained prosperity’, and so could aspire to highest things. Moreover, this is indicated by the fact that the person who performs this offering is not expected to take notice of persons who have not done so, go behind them, or share a bed with them. The nature of the rites is clearly on the one hand that of the attainment of victory and power by the symbolic acts of winning, of being hailed as victor, and anointing: references to fertility are obvious also, and the sun spell of the wheel is noteworthy. It is accordingly impossible to lay down precisely the original character of the rite:² it was not merely the feast of victory of the winner in a chariot race, such as might be paralleled in Greek ritual, nor was it solely an agricultural rite: it has been blended by a mixture of many elements to form a general offering available for any successful person.

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¹ *Rel. des Veda*², p. 470.

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² Keith, *Taittirīya Saṁhitā*, i. pp. cviii–cxi. For the sun-wheel see Cook, *Zeus*, i. 197 ff.

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This curious position of the Vājapeya clearly led to confusion: some texts place it above the Rājasūya, and say that by the latter mere kingship is conferred, by the former paramount lordship. But other texts make the Vājapeya appropriate for a paramount lord, and the Rājasūya for a universal monarch like Varuṇa.³ The simplest solution is that which makes the Vājapeya a rite which is performed by the king before the Rājasūya and by the Brahman before the Bṛhaspatisava.⁴ The essential priestly character of the rite as it stands is shown by the prominence of Bṛhaspati and the part played by Prajāpati.

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³ TB. ii. 7. 6. 1; ÇB. v. 1. 1. 13. See Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, ii. 256.

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⁴ ĀÇS. ix. 9. 19. For the Bṛhaspatisava, see JB. ii. 128–30 (used by both Brahman and Kṣatriya); PB. xvii. 11; TB. ii. 7. 1; KS. xxxvii. 7; BÇS. xviii. 1.

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Other special forms of sacrifices for obtaining a special rank are the Sūta, Grāmaṇī, Sthapati, and Go-Savas.⁵

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⁵ BÇS. xviii. 3 ff.; comm. on TB. ii. 7.

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