Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c31.s2: § 2. The Various Offerings

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c31.s2

Language
English

§ 2. The Various Offerings

v2.c31.s2.1

The daily offerings of the householder include offerings at night and morning to Agni and Prajāpati, and Sūrya and Prajāpati respectively:⁷ there is, however, great divergence as to the nature of the offerings, usually rice or barley, and the exact deities and times of offering. Further, there are five great offerings to be performed;⁸ the first is the Devayajña, that for the gods made in the fire morning and evening, when the meal is ready. The second, that called Bhūtayajña or Bali,⁹ is offered on the ground for all manner of beings; in the version of Gobhila, the first is for earth, the second for Vāyu, the third for the All-gods, the fourth for Prajāpati, then the fifth is offered in the water-holder for the god of the waters, the sixth at the middle posts for plants and trees, and the seventh at the house-door for the ether; an eighth in the bed for Kāma, and finally one in the dustbin for the Rakṣases. But many other names are also given, including offerings to hosts of serpents. The third great offering, the Pitṛyajña, is the throwing of the rest of the Bali sprinkled with water to the Fathers. The fourth, the Brahmayajña, is the repetition of some part of the Veda, usually reduced within narrow limits, and the fifth, the Manuṣyayajña, is the feeding of Brahmans, guests, and beggars.

v2.c31.s2.2

⁷ GGS. i. 3. 16; MGS. ii. 3. 1, 2; JGS. i. 23. The cow, however, may be let go; cf. BhGS. ii. 25 f.; VārGS. xii; BGS. i. 2, where great stress is laid on the use of a ram or goat in lieu, or flesh of a wild beast, and in default only is cereal allowed.

v2.c31.s2.3

⁸ GGS. i. 4. 1 ff.; PGS. ii. 9. 3 ff.; AGS. i. 2. 4 ff.; ÇGS. ii. 14; Kauç. lxxiv. 2; BGS. ii. 9; BhGS. iii. 14; VārGS., p. 22.

v2.c31.s2.4

⁹ Cf. Chap. 12, § 5; Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 189 ff.

v2.c31.s2.5

In the version of Çāṅkhāyana,¹ Vaiçvadeva offerings are made in the fire evening and morning to Agni, Soma, Indra and Agni, Viṣṇu, Bharadvāja Dhanvantari, Viçve Devās, Prajāpati, Aditi, Anumati, and Agni Sviṣṭakṛt. Then come the actual Balis offered in the centre of the floor for the same deities, followed by Balis for Brahman and the Brahmans and Vāstoṣpati. Balis are then distributed through the different quarters of the horizon in due order to the presiding deities, Indra, Yama, Varuṇa, Soma, and Bṛhaspati, each with those connected with him. Then turning towards the disk of the sun offerings are made to Aditi and the Ādityas, the Nakṣatras, seasons, months, half-months, days and nights, and years. On the thresholds offerings are made to Pūṣan as maker of ways, Dhātṛ, Vidhātṛ, and the Maruts; on the grindstone to Viṣṇu, on the mortar to the tree; in the place where the herbs are kept to the herbs; near the water-pot to Parjanya and the waters; at the head and the foot of the bed respectively to Çrī and Bhadrakālī; in the privy to Sarvānnabhūti; in the air in the evening to the night-walkers, in the morning to the day-walkers; in the north to the unknown gods and Dhanapati, the lord of wealth. Finally the remnants are poured out in the south for the Fathers, and then a Brahman or student and women are formally fed, as well as boys and the old. In this version we have a duplication which shows the fire ritual encroaching on the ordinary Bali ritual, which involves merely the placing on the ground of the offering for the use of the divinities. There is no doubt of the substantial antiquity of the latter rite, which is attested for Iran by the express and clear assertions of Herodotos,² and has also parallels in the usage of the Slavs, Lithuanians, and Germans.³ It is further clear from Çāṅkhāyana that we have in this elaborate rite the development of something far more simple and primitive, the purpose of which is hinted at in the further directions which are given that one should eat nothing without having cut off and offered a portion thereof as a Bali, nor should one eat alone or before others. Not merely the eating of firstfruits is a dangerous thing, rendering a preliminary offering to the gods and the Fathers desirable to break any taboo, but in every case of a meal it is well to propitiate by sharing the food which is enjoyed.⁴ Hence Çāṅkhāyana recommends, though not as part of the formal rite, the giving of food to the dogs, the dog-butchers, and the birds, and Manu¹ formally includes in the Bhūtayajña dogs, outcastes, diseased persons, birds, and insects. In the Kauçika Sūtra² we find abstract deities, Dharma, Adharma, hope, faith, wisdom, prosperity, modesty, and knowledge, along with the Vedic gods and snake deities such as Vāsuki, Citrasena, Citraratha, Takṣa, and Upatakṣa.

v2.c31.s2.6

¹ ii. 14; Arbman (*Rudra*, p. 191) omits Brahman and Varuṇa, doubtless *per incuriam*.

v2.c31.s2.7

² i. 132.

v2.c31.s2.8

³ Carnoy, *Les Indo-Européens*, p. 232.

v2.c31.s2.9

⁴ Cf. GGS. i. 4. 20; Manu, iii. 117 f.; RV. x. 117. 6; MGS. i. 9. 13; at the Madhuparka, AGS. i. 24. 15 ff.; ÇGS. iv. 21. 7 ff.; PGS. i. 3. 18 f. See also the Prāçitra legends, TS. ii. 6. 8. 3; ÇB. i. 7. 4. 1. Arbman (*Rudra*, pp. 204 ff.) compares modern Tibetan (JRAS. 1894, pp. 265 ff.) and Indian usages, as well as Greek and Roman and other parallels. Cf. Hubert and Mauss, *Mélanges*, pp. 74 ff.; Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, pp. 155, 171.

v2.c31.s2.10

¹ iii. 92.

v2.c31.s2.11

² lxxiv. 2 ff.

v2.c31.s2.12

In this generosity we may take it gods, Fathers, and men shared with all manner of beings, and the term Bali applied to all the offerings. Bhūtayajña may well have been a synonym, whence first were differentiated by regard to the recipients of the offerings the Fathers and men, Pitṛyajña and Manuṣyayajña. All these offerings were precisely of the same kind, made in the same way, without the use of fire, but the domestic ritual suffered expansion by the priests³ through the introduction of the fire ritual, and we have the spectacle of the Devayajña introduced making up with the Brahmayajña, Vedic study,⁴ a set of five sacrifices. The Devayajña, it is plain, is later than the Bhūtayajña in this connexion, and this renders the effort⁵ to interpret Bhūta in the light of the existence of the Devayajña out of the question. It is significant of its later character that the deities of the Devayajña differ greatly and are largely priestly; thus Gobhila⁶ make them to be the late figure of Prajāpati and the technical one of Agni Sviṣṭakṛt, who is far removed from popular rites. The absence of fire is found also, as we have seen, in parts of the Çrauta ritual, as in the hanging of offerings for Rudra on trees, a usage familiar from Germanic ritual, and it is common in the ritual of offerings to the dead which are frequently placed in pits.

v2.c31.s2.13

³ Cf. ÇB. xi. 5. 6. 1, which has the five; ApDS. i. 12. 13 (*brāhmaṇokta*).

v2.c31.s2.14

⁴ This is patently late; cf. ApDS. i. 13. 1; Manu, iii. 80 f.

v2.c31.s2.15

⁵ Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 189 ff., who fails to realize the complex and artificial character of the series of five, and the essential unity of the meal in which all share, gods generically, Fathers, and men.

v2.c31.s2.16

⁶ i. 4. 3.

v2.c31.s2.17

The new and full moon offerings⁷ of the domestic ritual agree closely in the deity and other details with those of the Çrauta, but for cakes are substituted paps as offerings, and the offerings to Indra or Mahendra entirely disappear. Other deities are, however, sometimes substituted. At the end the wife of the sacrificer makes an offering to the man, the woman, the age—or the bird, the white, the black toothed, the lord of bad women and others, who are difficult fully to explain. The sacrificer and his wife should spend the night before the offering in telling each other stories, and the sacrificer should follow some at least of the other rules applicable to the sacrificer with the Çrauta ritual. A spring festival in the month Caitra⁸ is recorded by one Sūtra only, figures of pairs of beasts are made from meal, which suggest a vegetation magic as at the Varuṇapraghāsas of the Çrauta ritual.

v2.c31.s2.18

⁷ GGS. i. 5; 8. 22; AGS. i. 10. 5; ApGS. vii. 17.

v2.c31.s2.19

⁸ ÇGS. iv. 19. Cf. MGS. ii. 7. 6–8 (the *talpa* is addressed).

v2.c31.s2.20

At the month Çrāvaṇa,¹ when the rains begin and snakes become very dangerous, an offering is made to appease them in the southern fire by the keeper of the fires, in the house fire by the ordinary householder, or a fresh fire may be lighted. In that offerings are made to many deities, including the earth spirit, Bhauma, the rains, Çravaṇa, as well as Agni, Sūrya, Vāyu and Viṣṇu; Çveta, a genius which is with its foot to drive away the snakes is also invoked. The second part of the sacrifice is one addressed directly to the snakes, who are given water to wash themselves in, a comb to comb themselves with, unguents, and so forth. Finally a Bali is offered to the snakes of the three regions: it is made of groats or roasted barley. This performance goes on daily, until the time when the beds of the sacrificer and his wife, which have been raised up since the beginning of the rains, are replaced on the ground with the advent of drier weather. A stream of water is poured round the house to keep the snakes at the desired distance from it.

v2.c31.s2.21

¹ GGS. iii. 7. 3; AGS. ii. 1. 15; ÇGS. iv. 15; PGS. ii. 14. 9; ApGS. xviii. 5-xix. 2; HGS. ii. 16; MGS. ii. 16; BGS. iii. 10; BhGS. ii. 1.

v2.c31.s2.22

On the full moon of Prauṣṭhapada² an offering is prescribed by one Sūtra for Indra, Indrāṇī, the one-footed goat, the serpent of the deep, and the Prauṣṭhapadas, and a Bali at the end to the Maruts, the other receiving butter libations. The mention of the two rare deities is clearly due to the presence of the twin Nakṣatra, Prauṣṭhapadas.

v2.c31.s2.23

² PGS. ii. 15.

v2.c31.s2.24

On the full moon of Açvinī³ is prescribed an offering to Paçupati, Çiva, Çaṅkara, and Pṛṣātaka; it consists of the sacrifice of a mixture of milk with butter. The deities, however, differ greatly, and it is not clear that the ceremony is intended for the welfare of the herds. The priest and the sacrificer partake of the Pṛṣātaka, and put on amulets, and later the cows are allowed to have a share of it, and eventually the calves and the cows are shut in together.

v2.c31.s2.25

³ AGS. ii. 2. 1; ÇGS. iv. 16; PGS. ii. 16; GGS. iii. 8. 1-8; KhGS. iii. 3. 1. Pṛṣātaka is really the name of the offering, and it is characteristic that Āçvalāyana turns it into a deity which none of the others do, and adds Çiva and Çaṅkara as forms of Paçupati. In MGS. ii. 3. 4-8 Pṛṣātaka and cows are both revered.

v2.c31.s2.26

The Āgrahāyaṇī festival⁴ is celebrated at the full-moon day of the month Mārgaçīrṣa: it is, as the name denotes, the festival of the beginning of a new year, and is characterized by a thorough cleaning of the house, followed by a smoking of it parallel to German rites observed at the new year, in which the house is smoked. The offerer also pours water into a water-jug set on a firm stone, which constitutes the consecration of the water-holder, in which daily Balis are offered. The use of six or nine kinds of plants in this ceremony is paralleled by the use of nine in Germany. At this time, the danger from snakes being over, the beds come back to the ground: the ceremony is carried out in due form, the householder sitting on a strew west of the fire with the rest of the family beside him in order of age, and then his wife and children, and those of the other members of the family: the earth is entreated to be friendly to them all. The snakes also receive offerings. A special form of snake offering¹ is commenced in Bhādrapada for one injured by a snake: a five-headed snake of wood or clay is made and revered for a whole year.

v2.c31.s2.27

⁴ GGS. iii. 9; AGS. ii. 3; ÇGS. iv. 17; PGS. iii. 2; ApGS. xix. 3; HGS. ii. 17; MGS. ii. 7. 1-5; BhGS. ii. 2; Weber, *Naxatra*, ii. 332.

v2.c31.s2.28

¹ AGPar. iii. 16. For magic rites against snake-poison, see Henry, *La magie dans l'Inde antique*, pp. 108 ff., 198 ff.

v2.c31.s2.29

Of the occasional offerings the most interesting is the Arghya,² the paying of honour to special guests, namely the teacher, the priest, a Snātaka, if he come as a wooer or on the day when he completes his studies by the bath, whence his name is derived, a connexion by marriage, or a friend. Only once a year apparently should the full ceremony be paid, but constantly to a priest invited to sacrifice. The gifts are six, one or two stools to sit on, water to wash the feet, Argha water, a portion of which is poured over the guest's hands, water to cleanse the mouth, the Madhuparka, a mixture of curds, honey and ghee, with or without water and barley groats. The guest may eat all, or give a portion to a son or pupil or other person: the king merely accepts *pro forma* and gives them to his Purohita. Finally the cow is offered and slain, unless the guest politely declines the offer, when other flesh may be used in its place. The deity varies in the cases of the different guests, Agni, Bṛhaspati, Indra and Agni, Prajāpati, Indra and Mitra, being given as the appropriate gods, for obvious reasons in most cases.

v2.c31.s2.30

² GGS. iv. 10; AGS. i. 24; ÇGS. ii. 15; PGS. i. 3; ApGS. xiii. 20; HGS. i. 13; MGS. i. 9. 1; BhGS. ii. 23-6; BGS. i. 2.

v2.c31.s2.31

The directions as to the building of the house³ are numerous and complicated. Of interest is the fact that the presence of certain plants and certain trees on the chosen place, or in its vicinity, is forbidden: the Açvattha is connected with the Açvins and causes the danger from fire, Yama's Palāça danger of death, Varuṇa's Nyagrodha danger of fighting, and Prajāpati's Udumbara bad eyes. The chosen place is thrice surrounded by a thin stream of water. The food chamber should be where water runs away, the parlour looking north, but opinions vary: the door should be in the west: it is also desirable that the householder should be ensured privacy at his meal and ritual. When the posts are driven into the earth, an Avakā plant is put in the hole to prevent fire. When the middle post is put in, Kuça grass is strewn, water, rice, and barley are poured on it, and homage paid to the earth spirit. An anointed stone is also buried, to which a parallel exists in the burying of stones in Buddhist temples in Siam. When the house is complete, an offering is made to Vāstoṣpati, which is repeated yearly according to some authorities. Brahmans are fed, and expected to wish good luck for the place. Even a black cow or a white goat may be offered: the former in its colour is similar to the black cock killed at the foundation of a new house in Greece.⁴ Ten Balis are also offered to the quarters. Of human sacrifice there is no trace in the ritual, which is meant in special of ordinary houses: such a practice is only recorded of the much more important Agnicayana. But there are traces of such a practice later¹ in legends and in history, perhaps coming from a period when the simple buildings of Vedic India had been superseded by large buildings of stone, which, like the brick altars, were supposed to need special measures to make them secure.

v2.c31.s2.32

³ GGS. iv. 7; AGS. ii. 7, 8; HGS. i. 27; MGS. ii. 11; AV. iii. 12; vii. 41; Bloomfield, *JAOS.* xvi. 12 ff.

v2.c31.s2.33

⁴ Winternitz, *Mitth. Anthrop. Ges. Wien*, 1887, xvii. 37 ff.

v2.c31.s2.34

¹ Haberlandt, *ibid.* 42 ff.

v2.c31.s2.35

The new house is entered when complete formally by the householder with his eldest son and his wife: they carry with them food, and partake of honey and butter to secure prosperity in it. On leaving and returning to it formulae of good luck are said.²

v2.c31.s2.36

² AGS. ii. 10. 2; ÇGS. iii. 4. 9. For magic rites as to houses see Henry, *La magie dans l'Inde antique*, pp. 96–9. Cf. BGS. i. 5; BhGS. ii. 4–6.

v2.c31.s2.37

Other acts of consecration are those of a grove or a tank of water: the offerings in the latter case include one to Varuṇa, as god of the waters.³

v2.c31.s2.38

³ ÇGS. v. 3; AGPar. iv. 9, 10.

v2.c31.s2.39

The agricultural festivals are not unimportant, and are numerous. Formulae are regularly used for the driving out and the return to their stalls of the cattle.⁴ Many curious performances⁵ are recorded as devices to secure the multiplying of the herds: the marking of a pair of calves male and female is one: in another a pap is offered to Agni, Pūṣan, Indra and Īçvara, and honour is paid to the bull, whose neck and horns are ornamented and who is fed. In the case of a horse, Yama and Varuṇa are included in the offering, and the same respect is paid to the horse. A cow which has two calves should be given away. The spit-ox⁶ sacrifice brings wealth and is of a special character: an ox is offered in spring or autumn to Rudra. The offering is made away from the village after midnight, or at least after sunset: Rudra's twelve names are invoked. The omentum is offered with a leaf or a wooden instrument, not with the Juhū ladle. Balis are offered also in all four quarters to appease the troops of Rudra.⁷ The tail, skin, &c., are thrown into the fire, the blood is poured out on Kuça or Darbha grass for the snakes, to whom formulae are addressed. None of the victims may be brought into the village, since the god is fain to hurt men, no connexion of the sacrificer may be near the place of sacrifice, and he himself shall not eat the flesh save for a very special instruction, in which case, however, he will prosper greatly. In another version of the offering, place is found for the wives of Rudra, Rudrāṇī, Çarvāṇī, Bhavānī, and for Indrāṇī: the blood-covered entrails are burned or cast into the fire. In another quite different form⁸ the offerings take the place of three messes of rice, which are offered to three animals, a bull, a cow, and a calf, which are styled the Çūlagava or Īçāna, the bountiful one, and the victor respectively: when the offerings are given, Rudra is hailed by all his names, the second offering is made to the wife of Rudra, the third to Jayanta. The cows are placed round the fire so as to smell the burnt offering, and all go round it from left to right, while verses are addressed to the Çūlagava. It is perfectly clear¹ that here the bull and the cow are fetishes for the god and his wife, but the position of Jayanta is less obvious: possibly a child of the two is deemed to be represented by him. At the same time it must be realized that the beasts are so treated merely as a substitute for the other rite of slaughter; the rite has every appearance of being a later elaboration.

v2.c31.s2.40

⁴ GGS. iii. 6. 9.

v2.c31.s2.41

⁵ GGS. iii. 6; KhGS. iii. 1; HGS. i. 18.

v2.c31.s2.42

⁶ AGS. iv. 8; PGS. iii. 8; not in GGS.; very briefly in MGS. ii. 5. Cf. BhGS. ii. 8–10; BGS. ii. 7.

v2.c31.s2.43

⁷ Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 156 ff.

v2.c31.s2.44

⁸ HGS. ii. 8; ĀpGS. xix. 13 ff.; see above, Chap. 18, § 4.

v2.c31.s2.45

¹ Haradatta’s effort to ignore this is quite indefensible.

v2.c31.s2.46

Another rite,² the Baudhyavihāra, a curious name of dubious origin, for the propitiation of Rudra and his hordes, is the making of a basket of Palāça leaves, the placing in it of rice and butter, and hanging it on a tree as an offering to the god as wearer of the quiver: the offerer also spreads leaves about and touches the cattle with a number of things, with sandal, salve, Surā, water, cow-dung, and a cow’s tail to secure luck. Further, an offering is made to Kṣetrapati,³ who is represented by a bull as at the Çūlagava rite.

v2.c31.s2.47

² HGS. ii. 9. 7; ApGS. xix. 20.

v2.c31.s2.48

³ HGS. *l. c.*; ApGS. xx. 13 ff.

v2.c31.s2.49

Mention is also made, as appropriate to be performed on the new moon after full moon in Phālguna, of the marking of the cattle, which is accompanied by the expression of the hope that the work will be more in the following year.⁴ The ceremony of letting loose a bull⁵ is performed at the full moon of Kārttika: it is performed by lighting a fire among the cows, offering six libations of butter and a pap for Pūṣan, and with a verse addressed to Rudra the bull is set free, after being ornamented. The Brahmans receive a meal for the preparation of which milk from all the cows has been used.

v2.c31.s2.50

⁴ ÇGS. iii. 10; cf. MGS. ii. 10. 1 ff.: the women are not to eat of one offering (a *tundila* (?) for Agni).

v2.c31.s2.51

⁵ PGS. iii. 9; Kauç. xxiv. 22. For other magic rites for cattle see Henry, *La magie dans l'Inde antique*, pp. 102–6; for agriculture, pp. 106–111. See also AV. vi. 141; Delbrück, *Guru-pūjākaumudī*, p. 48. AV. ii. 32 is directed against worms in cattle.

v2.c31.s2.52

Of agricultural rites proper there are several of importance. The ceremony of ploughing is formally accomplished after the plough has been yoked.⁶ On the east side of the field an offering is made before the plough to sky and earth. Among the deities to whom offerings are also made are Indra, Parjanya, the Açvins, the Maruts, Udalākāçyapa, Svātikārī, Sītā and Anumati, and others: the bulls receive honey and butter. Other rites of the same kind are those to the furrow, the offering on the threshing-floor, at sowing, at harvest and at threshing, and here may be mentioned the offering made to avert danger from the moles or mice to the king of the moles or mice: a similar practice may be the explanation of the connexion of the mouse with Apollo in which totemism has been so often seen.⁷

v2.c31.s2.53

⁶ ÇGS. iv. 13; GGS. iv. 4. 27 ff.; PGS. ii. 13; Kauç. xv.

v2.c31.s2.54

⁷ Cf. Lang, *Custom and Myth*, pp. 103 ff.; Farnell, *Cults of the Greek States*, iv. 164, 265, who lays stress on the probability that the connexion is rooted in pre-Hellenic custom.

v2.c31.s2.55

The offering to the furrow is described at some length in one Sūtra.⁸

v2.c31.s2.56

⁸ PGS. ii. 17; cf. MGS. ii. 10. 7.

v2.c31.s2.57

East or north of the field on a place which is pure, and has been ploughed without injury to fruits, or in the village, a fire is kindled, and Darbha grass mixed with rice or barley, according to the season, is strewed round it: then offerings of butter are made to Indra, Sītā, the furrow, and Urvarā, the ploughfield, and from the food cooked in a pot to Sītā, Yajā, the personified sacrifice, Çamā, ‘energy’, and Bhūti, ‘prosperity’. On the Kuça grass remaining from the strewing an offering is made to the guardians of the furrow, who sit in the east with bows and quivers, in the south to those with mail, in the west to the mighty Bhūti, Bhūmi, Pārṣṇi, and Çunaṁkuri, and in the north to the terrible ones. The women should also make offerings.

v2.c31.s2.58

In a period lying outside the Vedic period proper we are carried by the Caitya offering which is recorded in one Sūtra:¹ it is interesting, as it seems clearly to refer to the offering of homage to the memorials erected to the memory of some teacher or other distinguished personage. The procedure contemplates that the Caitya cannot be visited in person: therefore the sacrificer prepares two bales of food, and gives them to a messenger real or symbolical, to take to the destination, providing the messenger with a weapon and boat, if the journey is a long one. The offering to Dhanvantari, which is mentioned with emphasis as needing the co-operation of priests, is not explained in the texts.

v2.c31.s2.59

¹ AGS. i. 12; Oldenberg, SBE. xxix. 178. Similar late offerings are those to Ṣaṣṭhī (MGS. ii. 13), who is giver of wealth and is called Çrī; to the Vināyakas (*ib.* 14; Yājñ. i. 274 ff.); to Nejameṣa (*ib.* 18. 4). The Soma text gives remedies for evil omens from a pigeon (ii. 17) and evil dreams (ii. 15).

v2.c31.s2.60

The offerings of firstfruits belong to the domestic as well as to the Çrauta ritual; as in it there are offerings of rice, barley, and millet at different periods, and at these offerings Indra, Brahman, and Vāsuki are to receive libations. Another similar offering is the Āsasyabali, to be performed by the householder alone, of barley up to the rice harvest, and of rice up to the barley harvest.²

v2.c31.s2.61

² GGS. iv. 7. 43; i. 4. 30; ÇGS. iii. 8. 1; PGS. iii. 1. 1; ApGS. xix. 6.

Linked texts (21)