The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c30.s5.5

v2.c30.s5.5

The third festival is the Sākamedhas: the number of offerings in it, especially for the Maruts, is considerable, but the most important element is a feast for the dead, the Pitṛyajña, or Mahāpitṛyajña, where the Fathers are honoured as Somavantas, ‘connected with Soma’, sitting on the strew, and as ‘burnt by Agni’. The rite follows the rules for offerings to the dead: it takes place in a hut south of the Dakṣiṇa fire, in which a Vedi is made and the fire there placed: the offerings are made with the term Svadhā¹ in place of Svāhā. Still more important is an offering to Tryambaka,² which is an offering to Rudra, everything therefore being done in the north, the region of that god. At a cross-way a fire is made and cakes offered in it, at least four, but properly one more than the number of the members of the family. One, however, is thrown upon an ant-heap in the north with the words, ‘This is thy portion: the mole is thine animal, O Rudra’. On returning the priests engaged and the sacrificer all say, ‘We supplicate Rudra away from us, away the god Tryambaka’. As in the offering to the Fathers, they go round the fire thrice from right to left, smiting the left thigh, then thrice in the opposite and normal way, smiting the right thigh, and the same form is followed by the unmarried women of the family, in verses which show that they hoped thus to secure marriage and avoid death. The remains of the cakes the sacrificer throws up in the air and catches as they fall: the cakes are then tied up in two baskets, tied to a bamboo, and placed on a tree³ or some similar object so high that an ox cannot reach them. Rudra is then asked to go away beyond the Mūjavants, after which the breath is held and the sacrificers return from the place without looking back,⁴ and touch water. The fee is a white horse, or a bull, white or with white marks. The festival is followed by an offering to Çunāsīrau, which is evidently an agricultural rite for ploughing, addressed to two parts or deities of the plough. The features of it are a cake on twelve potsherds for Çunāsīrau or Indra Çunāsīrīya, fresh milk or barley gruel for Vāyu, and a cake on one potsherd for Sūrya: the fee is a six or twelve span plough or two plough beasts, while for the offering to Sūrya a white horse or sheep is the fee. A curious way of celebrating the whole of the offering together, in five days from the 11th day of the light half of Phālguna to the full moon, is recorded as practised by the Kaṭhas. The offerings can also be connected with the Soma and the animal offering in such a way that the six days of the three make up a Pṛṣṭhya Ṣaḍaha.