The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c36.s2.14

v2.c36.s2.14

The Aṣṭakās⁶ are festivals of special importance and difficulty. The rule of Āçvalāyana is that there should be four, on the eighth day of the dark half of the month in the two months of each of the two seasons, winter and the cool season, Mārgaçīrṣa, Pauṣa, Māgha, and Phālguna. But the rule is that the number should be three or less. The normal view seems to be that Taiṣa, Māgha, Phālguna are the months, but the three ceremonies can be reduced to three days, the 7th to 9th of one month, or pressed into the eighth day only. Hiraṇyakeçin allows only one festival, the three-day rite of the Ekāṣṭakā, the eighth day of the dark half of the month Māgha. The deities of the Aṣṭakās are a matter of dispute: Agni, Sūrya, Prajāpati, night, the Nakṣatras, the seasons, and the Fathers have all claims. The nature of the offering is equally disputed: some demand flesh at all three: others cakes at the first, a cow at the second, and vegetables at the third, or the same set but in diverse order. A very odd rite is prescribed by the Mānava school,⁷ for the evening before the last Aṣṭakā: at the cross-roads the sacrificer kills a cow, dismembers it, and divides the flesh among the passers-by. The Aṣṭakā is followed by the Anvaṣṭakya, which is allowed to follow all three rites, or the middle one only. The nature of the rite is rather curious: a fire is made, surrounded, and an opening made in the north: an offering strew is laid down, and food placed on it, various forms of rice with sesame, milk rice, and mixed messes of meat and sour milk, and of meal and honey. Then he offers to Soma with the Fathers and to Agni Kavyavāhana, and thereafter gives to the Fathers in the east, and their wives in the west, shares of all except the honey drink: the Mothers receive also Surā and the scum of boiled rice. The offering is, according to Gobhila, made with much elaboration in pits which are dug for the offerings. Three lumps of food are made, and salve and sesame oil are also given to the Fathers and the Brahmans: the three lumps at the end are put to varied uses: the middle one his wife eats, if she wishes sons: the others are put in the water, or on a fire, or given to a cow or to a Brahman to eat.¹ The giving to a cow is of interest as it is also provided as a substitute for the offering of a cow at the appropriate Aṣṭakā that a cow should be given food to eat. It is difficult not to feel that this is a case of a very simple desire to save the life of the cow, and of the parallel desire to secure the favour of the cow. Another mode of evading the offering of a cow at the Aṣṭakās was to fire brushwood, an idea which Oldenberg² has suggested may be regarded as an effort to strengthen the sun at the period of the winter solstice, in which very roughly the Aṣṭakās tended to fall.