The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s3.88

v2.c39.s3.88

The importance of faith is such that it renders the gods of no importance, for the man who has faith realizes that the sacrifice produces its results without need of the gods. Atri is one of those whose deity is faith, Çraddhādeva: when he is in need he does not appeal to heaven, but invents the proper rite and disposes of his disabilities.⁹ The first father of men, Manu himself, is the believer in faith *par excellence*: his one aim is the sacrifice: with Iḍā as his daughter¹⁰ he repeoples the world after the deluge, and he continues his long course of sacrifices even down to the point that he is anxious to sacrifice his own wife at the bidding of the demons, Tṛṣṭa and Varutri, and has to be prevented from doing so by Indra, who induces him to let her go, when the fire had already been carried round her as a preliminary to the slaughter. But one version actually attributes to him the performance of the sacrifice at the suggestion of Kilāta and Ākuli, the Asura priests.¹¹ This faith in the sacrifice is encouraged by the long accounts given of the men who flourished by the use, and by the still longer lists of things, which by the sacrifice can be achieved automatically for men by the priests.