The History of Buddhist Thought c17.4

c17.4

The sacrifice thus looked upon as an appeal to the gods to be gracious is entirely different from a magical ceremony, in which a result follows merely from the performance of a prescribed act. Yet the belief became established that if the sacrifice were duly performed a certain result would inevitably follow. The performance alone produced the result, not the favour of a divine being. To the extent which this idea predominates, the ritual of sacrifice becomes indistinguishable from that of magic. This appears as the prevailing notion in the later Vedic period of the Brāhmaṇas. In the Brāhmaṇa of the Hundred Paths rules are given for the proper building of the altar. To get the desired result the altar must be of a prescribed size, and this is explained by the myth of the gods who were instructed by the god Prajāpati how to build an altar.