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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c30.s7: § 7. The Animal Sacrifice

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c30.s7

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§ 7. The Animal Sacrifice

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According to the Sūtras we must distinguish between the animal sacrifice as an independent offering and the sacrifice as connected with the Soma sacrifice: the offering of a goat to Agni and Soma in that offering is often treated as the Prakṛti of all animal sacrifices, but in some cases the independent animal offering which is called the Nirūḍhapaçubandha² takes the place of the Agnīṣomīya. The rite is to be performed by any man who establishes the fires, before he eats meat, and then yearly or half yearly, in which case the beginning of the bright course of the sun and the end of that period are prescribed by some authorities. The form of the offering is that of the new-moon sacrifice, the victim taking the place of the milk offered to Indra or Mahendra, but there is present another priest, the Maitrāvaruṇa, whose duty it is to give directions to the Hotṛ to say his Yājyā verses. For Indra and Agni, or Sūrya, or Prajāpati, a goat is the victim; it must be perfect, free from blemish, such as the loss of a horn or an eye; but in other offerings than the Nirūḍhapaçubandha are found many other animals, including normally oxen and sheep; and exceptionally, as at the piling of the fire, at the horse sacrifice and at human sacrifices, large numbers of victims are alleged to be offered, mainly if not entirely in theory. For Nirṛti the dove, owl, and hare are offered,³ to the Rakṣases the black dog, the ass with lop ears, and the unknown *tarakṣu*.⁴ Some animals appear as unfit for ordinary sacrifice, the dog, the *durvarāha*, ‘bad boar’, and *eḍaka*, ‘vicious ram’. The normal rite occupies two days, of which the former is filled by preliminary rites, the second being the day of the actual sacrifice. The two days however may be compressed into one.

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² ApÇS. vii; BÇS. iv.; KÇS. vi; MÇS. i. 8; ĀÇS. iii. 1–8; iv. 11, 12; ÇÇS. v. 15 ff.; vi. 18 ff.; Vait. x; Schwab, *Das altindische Thieropfer* (Erlangen, 1886); Haug, *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, ii. 72 ff.; Weber *Ind. Stud.* x. 344 ff.; Hubert and Mauss, *Année sociol.* ii. 62 ff. (with many parallels from Jewish and Greek records); Keith, *Rig-Veda Brāhmaṇas*, pp. 134 ff., 403 ff.

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³ MS. iii. 14. 19.

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⁴ MS. iii. 14. 21. For the dog offering cf. that of a dog to Robigus in the Roman religion; Warde Fowler, *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, p. 197. The motive in both cases was presumably propitiation; the choice of an abnormal victim being due to the abnormal character of the recipient.

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An essential feature of the rite is the use of a post, to which the victim is tied : in the greater rites as many as eleven are used : the tree is solemnly cut down with protestations that it is not being injured, and, when a splinter is struck out of it in the cutting, that is kept and placed ultimately in the pit in which the post is inserted. The stump is treated with respect, and receives a libation, accompanied by a prayer that it shall spring up with a hundred shoots. The post is placed in a hole which is half within, half without the altar. Round the post a band is placed at the height of the navel; if the sacrificer wishes little or much rain he places it lower or higher. For the sacrifice the altar is placed west of the fire, and in the east third of it another altar, Uttaravedi, is provided as at the Varuṇapraghāsas, and a fire placed there, which takes the place of the normal Āhavanīya, while that serves as the Gārhapatya. There are required also special implements, the spit for the heart, and the utensils by which the omentum is cooked.

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When the preparations are over, the victim is bathed, and brought up, and tied to the post by a string, which is fastened to the left forefoot, round the back, and over the left horn : it is then sprinkled and given a drink.¹ Then the kindling verses are said, the butter oblations are offered, the victim is anointed with the butter,² and the usual procedure of the new- and full-moon sacrifices followed down to the fore-offerings, which number eleven and to which the Āprī litanies provide the Yājyā verses. After the tenth of the fore-offerings, the splinter of the tree, and the one edge of the two-edged knife, are dipped in the butter : the actual slaying must be done with the unconsecrated side by the slaughterer or Çamitṛ, the other being used by the Adhvaryu to cut off portions for offering. The Āgnīdhra thrice carries a brand round the victim, the Apāvya libations are performed, the Adhvaryu gives through the Maitrāvaruṇa the order to the Hotṛ to recite the old litany³ for the slaying of the victim; from the Gārhapatya fire flame is placed on the Çāmitra fire, the victim is then taken over to that fire, preceded by the Āgnīdhra with his firebrand, followed by the Pratiprasthātṛ, touching it with the spit, the Adhvaryu holding on to him and the sacrificer to the Adhvaryu, thus keeping in close contact with the holy power in the victim.

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Then the victim, with its head facing west, its feet north, is by the Çamitṛs strangled or pierced without sound,⁴ while the rest of those present turn their heads away. Then a libation is made, and the wife of the sacrificer brought up. The Adhvaryu or the wife pours water over the members of the victim and washes them. The omentum is taken out and placed on a spit: in the first blood a grass blade is dipped, and thrown north-west or south-west as a spell to devote the enemy to the deepest darkness. It is cooked on the Çāmitra fire, and then placed on the Uttaravedi, where it is covered with butter. Then come the eleventh fore-offering, the two butter portions, and then the offering of the whole of the omentum, which is covered with pieces of gold and butter. The spits are then cast into the fire, and the fees distributed, three barren or three milch cows. Then come the making of the rice cake and the cutting up of the victim: of these eighteen portions are made, of which the first eight count as *daivatāni*: the heart is cooked separately on a spit, the rest of the pieces are cooked in a pot, while the excrement, blood, and stomach are offered to the Rakṣases, in a pit west of the Çāmitra fire outside the altar-ground. The various parts of the animal are then offered, the priests have shares both of the Iḍā as usual and of the meat. Then come the 11 after-offerings, offerings to the strew, the divine doors, &c.

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With each of the after-offerings a supplementary offering is connected in which the Pratiprasthātṛ offers pieces of the intestines which are left over. The splinter, the staff, of which the Maitrāvaruṇa never lets go, and the Prastara, 'bundle of grass', are put into the fire. The offering to the wives of the gods is performed with the tail of the victim, the heart spit is buried, with a verse imploring Varuṇa to forgive sin, in the presence of the sacrificer, his wife, and all the priests.¹ As they go back they each pick up three dry twigs, and place them on the Uttaravedi.

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¹ Perhaps originally to secure a free flow of blood; *cf.* Eitrem, *Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Römer*, p. 435; Keith, JHS. xxxvi. 109. Doubtless it may have been felt in time as purificatory (*cf.* the sacrificer's rinsing of his own mouth), as taken by Hubert and Mauss (*op. cit.* 65, n. 1).

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² *Cf.* the Roman *mola salsa*, the Greek *οὐλαί* (JHS. xxxvi. 108).

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³ Roth, *Nir.*, pp. xxxviii ff.; AB. ii. 6; KB. x. 4; *cf.* Warde Fowler, *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, p. 180.

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⁴ For this requirement *cf.* the solemn display of the corn at Eleusis; probably in silence the corn was cut and displayed likewise in silence; *cf.* Reinach, *Revue des Études Grecques*, xvi. 342 ff.; *E.S.*, JHS. xxxvi. 105; Farnell, *Cults of the Greek States*, iii. 183 f.

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¹ Above, Part III, Chap. 18, § 6.

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The animal sacrifice can be used for many special purposes, in which cases some variation is made to adapt it to the special end in view.

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In all its essential features the offering must be regarded as a gift only: the presence of the divine essence in the victim is clearly proved by abundant evidence, and the priests all taste of it. But there is not the slightest sign in the elaborate ritual, nor in the formulae which are recorded in full, that there was any idea that the death of the victim was the ritual death of one of the gods, or that the ceremony was a sacrament, in which worshippers renewed or strengthened their union with the god by a common meal.²

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² *Ibid.*, § 5. Hubert and Mauss (*Année sociol.* ii. 81, 82) indeed compare the invocation and consumption of the Iḍā to the Mass and transubstantiation; but this is clearly a grave exaggeration. The Iḍā is the divine power present in the food when eaten: there is no question of the death and eating of a divinity.

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