The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0080/00802.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00802}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Religions
Chapter II: Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Foot Moore, George}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{gods
rig-veda
rites
sacrifice
priests
like
soma
place
ritual
form}
$Date{1913}
$Log{}
Title:       History Of Religions
Book:        Religions Of India
Author:      Foot Moore, George
Date:        1913

Chapter II: Part I

     The proper conduct of sacrifice demands the assistance of priests who are
expert in the ritual and know the proper invocations, and can recite the
ancient hymns of praise and prayer or compose new ones.  Kings and other great
persons had a priestly adviser, Purohita, a kind of private chaplain, who
often held his place for life and had much influence with his princely patron.
In the greater sacrifices a considerable number of priests was employed, each
of whom had his own particular function.  In a verse of the Rig-Veda (II, 1,
2) seven classes are named.  The most important of them are the Hotar, who
recites the hymns, and the Adhvaryu, the officiating priest, who, himself or
with the assistance of others, attends to the sacrificial fire, strews the
grass for the gods to sit on, arranges and purifies the utensils, prepares and
offers the cakes, presses, filters, and offers the soma.  Besides these, the
Udgatar, or singing priest, who is not named in the list cited, is a
conspicuous figure in the developed liturgy; he accompanies certain stages of
the ceremony with his hymns set to fixed melodies.  Over all these stands, in
the later ritual, the Brahman, a master of ceremonies learned in all three
Vedas, who keeps an eye on the whole performance, and promptly intervenes to
correct or remedy any error or omission. ^1

[Footnote 1: The prose formulas which the Adhvaryu pronounces at each turn in
his performance constitute the Yajur-Veda; the songs of the Udgatar the
Sama-Veda.  The texts of the Hotar form the Rig-Veda.]

     For the household rites which every Aryan observes the fire on the
domestic hearth suffices, and the head of the house in person or a Brahman for
him officiates.  Princes and wealthy men, as well as Brahmans, offer greater
sacrifices with an elaborate and complicated ritual, for which three fires are
necessary.  One of these is lighted from the hearth, and is called the
householder's fire; the second, situated toward the east, is the sacrificial
fire, to which the offerings are actually committed; the third, or southern,
fire serves for rites of aversion, to ward off the evil influences of the
manes and other spirits.

     The fixed times of sacrifice are the new moon, the full moon, and the
beginning of the three seasons of the year; further, the solstices,
particularly the winter solstice, and the feasts of first-fruits.  The
material of the offerings includes various species of food: milk, butter,
grains, meal, cakes of different kinds, and domestic animals - neat cattle,
sheep, and goats.  The commonest victim was a goat; the horse sacrifice, the
most costly of all, was offered only by kings on great occasions.  The colour
and sex of the victims are related in many cases to the deities to whom they
are offered, and in other respects the choice is subject to various rules;
many physical defects render an animal unfit for sacrifice. The victim was
"quieted" by strangling or suffocation, without shedding blood, and, if
possible, without allowing it to make a sound, the priests and worshippers
turning their backs upon the scene.  The caul (great omentum) was first
removed and broiled on a spit; then various parts of the animal, beginning
with the heart, were boiled and offered to the gods. Other parts were eaten by
the priests, and what was left was divided between the priests and the giver
of the sacrifice.  The blood and offal from the carcass was given to the
demons (Rakshases).

     The soma offering holds beyond comparison the highest place among the
Vedic sacrifices; with it the Rig-Veda is especially associated.  This
pre-eminence is perhaps to be attributed in some degree to the partiality of
the priests, though the importance of soma even in Indo-Iranian times is
unquestioned.  In the form which it has in the ritual books, this offering
must have been restricted to the very rich.  The soma offering has no fixed
season, though spring is named as an auspicious time for it.  The libation is
made to a whole catalogue of gods in a fixed order at the three "pressings"
(morning, midday, and evening); but principally to Indra, who not only shares
at morning and evening with the other gods, but has the midday pressing for
himself alone.  The gods who participate in the morning pressing are Indra and
Vayu, Mitra and Varuna, the Acvins, Sarasvati, "the All-gods." In the evening,
according to the ritual of the younger Vedas, the Adityas, Savitar, the
All-gods, Agni, and Indra.

     The preparations for the offering lasted through many days, and called
into requisition the services of numerous priests and attendants.  On the day
of sacrifice the rites began in the early morning; the priests were busy with
the preparation and offering of cakes and the libation of milk, the sacrifice
of eleven he-goats to different gods, the expressing of the juice from the
stalks of the soma plant, filtering the liquid, mixing it with water, milk, or
honey, decanting it from one vessel to another, pouring out libations to the
gods, drinking the priests' share, all with manifold and minutely regulated
forms and motions; the singing priests intoned their chants as the soma
dripped through the sieve, to the responses of the officiating priest, with
his solemn "Om." The gods and their wives, above all, Indra, who has come with
his chariot and pair of tawny steeds, are seated invisible on the mat of grass
spread for them.  So it goes on morning, noon, and night.

     Before and during a sacrifice certain preparations were obligatory,
including fasting, abstinence from cohabitation, sleeping on the ground,
bathing, shaving, fresh garments, and the like.  The duration and severity of
the restrictions varied with the solemnity of the occasion; at the great soma
offering the fasting was, at least in the theory of the ritual books,
protracted to emaciation.  At the close of the ceremonies another bath was
prescribed.  The purifications keep away the malign demonic influences from
the holy place, and remove from the worshippers the hardly less dangerous
contagion of holiness; the fasting, as in many savage religions, predisposes
to abnormal psychical states, which are attributed to spirits and in higher
religions become communion with the gods and revelation from them.  The rites
of worship are attended at every turn by words and acts to repel the demons
that frequent the place of sacrifice and try to nullify it; water and fire and
the potent formula are the means chiefly employed.

     The notions of the operation and effect of sacrifice which appear in the
Veda are sufficiently simple.  Man wants the protection and help of the gods,
the gifts which they can bestow - health, good fortune, children, cows.  He
believes that they are approachable in the same way as the great of this earth
and amenable to the same motives.  They enjoy hearing their own praises sung,
their power and goodness magnified, their assistance asked; they are pleased
with the gifts men bring them, especially with ample provision of food and of
the divine drink, soma.  Like generous men, they will not fail to make a
liberal return for the good things they accept.  This is commonly taken for
granted, or more or less delicately hinted in the praise of the god's
goodness; but it is not seldom more frankly outspoken: "Give me; I give to
thee." "Drink, strengthen thyself; thine are the pressed draughts of soma, O
Indra, now as heretofore.  As thou hast drunk the old, so drink to-day, thou
blessed one, the new. . . . Bring on!  None shall hinder thee.  We know thee,
the owner of treasures. Indra, lord of the tawny steeds, grant us thy greatest
gift." "Enjoy the soma, satisfy thy