The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s3.27

v2.c39.s3.27

In the struggle the sacrifice plays a constant part: the gods are often aided by advice from Prajāpati, and they apply themselves to severe penances to bring about victory, but the decisive thing in their favour is their knowledge of the correct mode of offering: the Asuras put the bricks in the fire altar with the mark below,⁷ in the preliminary rites they shave first the hair, then the beard, then the arm-pits;⁸ they offer a white victim born of a black mother,⁹ and these errors are fatal. They try magic but without success. The gods on their part cajole the chaplains of the demons, Çanḍa, Marka, and Uçanas, and are willing to break faith for victory: they detach the Rakṣases from the Asuras by promise of equal shares of the spoil, and they refuse them any share at all.¹⁰ They defeat the Asuras by the inability of the latter to find a feminine for the word five,¹¹ but more often they have to fight hard battles. One story shows the Asuras seeking to build a fire altar to reach the heaven: Indra disguises himself, is allowed to put on a brick, and, when it is all but finished, he drags it away with the result that the altar falls.¹² Even, however, within the divine family there are disagreements: the ancient Sādhya gods seem to have vanished from importance,¹³ but the Ādityas and the Aṅgirases are bitter rivals. Here, again, however, the value of knowledge of the sacrifice is the most important thing of all, and the Ādityas are superior by far in this and reach heaven before the Aṅgirases, who have to serve them in place of being served by them. The same defective knowledge in the Aṅgirases leads them to require teaching from Nābhānediṣṭha, for which they have to pay dearly, and drives them to compromises with the Fathers.¹