From the fanciful narrative of Arena's martial exploits whilst following his precious charge, one could not of course venture to draw any conclusion as to the kind of adventures the sacred horse might have met with, at the time of the Br^mawa, during the period of its roaming at large. As a rule, however, the closely-watched animal would probably not range very far from the place where the sacri- fice was to be performed ; and though its body of guardians were not permitted at any time to force it to retrace its steps, they could have had little difficulty in keeping it within a certain range of grazing. Indeed^ on the occasion of King Dararatha's A,yvamedha^, described in the first canto of the R^m&ya^a, no mention whatever is made of
takes the ' purusham ' here to refer to the 'vair^t pamshi* mentioned in the Saiffhiti. Perhaps, however, this passage has rather a wider sense, referring to human victims generally at any sacrifice.
^ DraupadS's Axva-upasaf^/vexanam is referred to, but no further particulars are mentioned.
' The king's object, in performing the sacrifice, was to obtain the birth of a son. Cf. .Slat. Br. XIII, i, 9, 9, * for fropi of old a hero was bom to him who^iad performed the (Aivamedha) sacrifice.'
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^ Whilst cattle-lifting generally, such as formed the object of the invasion of the land of the Matsyas by the Trigartas (as related in the Vir&/a-parvan) , was probably a practice pretty prevalent from ancient times, the stealing of the sacrificial horse woold offer an additional temptation, from the political point of view, on account of the exceptional character of the animal as the symbol of its master's claim to paramountcy.
» 5at. Br. XIII, I, 6, 3 ; Taitt. Br. Ill, 8, 9, 4.
' One might feel inclined to take this specification of that month as implying the existence, at the poet's time, of the practice of confining the horse in a pen or shed (made of Arvattha palings) during the last two months, mentioned Taitt, Br. Ill, 8, la, a.
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cause not a little bad blood, and might lead to complica- tions and struggles not less serious than those occasioned by Vasish/Aa's cow, or, in Irish legend, by the brown bull of Queen Medb (Mab) of Connaught.
Whilst the epic account of the Ajvamedha thus presents an instructive, though extravagant, illustration of possible occurrences during the preliminary period of the sacrifice, some items of the ceremonial on which further information might have been acceptable are altogether ignored in it. Two of these at least one might have expected to find mentioned there, seeing that they are of special interest to Kshatriyas, viz. the practice of a Br&hma;ia and a Kshatriya lute-player singing \ morning and night, stanzas composed by themselves in honour of the king ; and the so-called * revolving legend' (XIII, 4, 3, i seqq.) related by the Hotriy in a ten days' cycle all the year round. It is especially in regard to this latter point that the statements of the ritualistic works might with advantage have been supplemented. During the ten days' cycle a different god, or some mythic personage, is assumed, on each successive day, to be king, having some special class of beings assigned to him as his subjects, and a certain body of texts as his Veda from which a section is then recited. But from the particulars given it even remains uncertain whether any legend connected with the respective deity was actually related; whilst regarding the form and nature of some of the specified texts — such as the sarpavidyft (snake- science), deva^navidy^ (demonology), mkySi (or asuravidyi, magic art) — we really know next to nothing. Nay, even regarding the Itih&sas and Pura^as, likewise figuring as distinct texts, additional knowledge would by no means be unwelcome. And though regarding some of the divin- ities referred to the Hotri might easily have made up some kind of short tale, others would have required some
* See XIII, I, 5, I seqq. ; 4, 3, 8 seqq. ; Taitt. Br. Ill, 9, 14. In connection iwith the ' revolving legend,' the conductors of bands of lute-players seem to have sung additional stanzas in which the royal Sacrificer was associated with pious kings of old ; see XIII, 4, 5, 3.
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exercise of ingenuity, unless he had at his disposal materials other than those accessible to us. As a rule, however, legends of this kind would seem to have been of the simplest possible description, as may be gathered from the particulars regarding the ' NirlLra/wsAni,' or recitals in praise of (pious) men, which, according to Sdhkhdyana (XVI, ii), take the place of the ' revolving legend ' in the ten days' cycle of the Purushamedha. The Hotr/*s recitals on that occasion consist simply of certain verses, or hymns, of the i?2g-veda, generally celebrating the liberality shown by some patron to his priest, preceded by a brief statement merely consisting, it would seem, of a prose paraphrase of the respective verses recited thereafter. This latter set of recitations and legends thus consists entirely of matter taken from, or based on, the i?/g-veda, which is indeed the proper source for the Hotri priest to resort to for his utterings. The recitations required for the Ajvamedha, on the other hand, consist of matter drawn not even from the three older Vedas alone, but also from the Atharvans and Ahgiras whose names combined usually make up the old designation of the hymns and spells of the Atharva-veda, whilst they are here taken separately as if still representing two different collections of texts ; — nay, the materials, as we have seen, are even drawn from other, probably still later, sources ^ This circumstance, added to the fact that the texts of the Black Ya^us make no mention of this item of the cere- monial ^ might well make one suspect its comparatively late introduction into the A^vamedha ritual ; though even this would not, of course, make it any the less strange that no allusion should be made, in the epic account, to this by no means the least interesting feature of the performance. One must, however, bear in mind that the poet's mind was evidently more intent on telling about the wonderful deeds
' It is hardly likely that some of the texts mentioned (devi^$imaYidy4, sarpavidya, &c.) refer merely to portions of the Vedic texts.
' The singing of stanzas in honour of the king, by a Brihmana and a Kshatriya, with the accompaniment of lutes, on the other hand, does form part of the Taittirlya ritual. Taitt. Br. Ill, 9, 14,
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of the semi-divine bowman in foreign lands than on recording the regularly recurring rites performed, in the meantime, at home in the presence of the royal sacrificer himself. Even in cases where the horse was kept within a convenient distance from the sacrificial compound all the year round, its warders, themselves partly of royal blood, could hardly have had an opportunity of attending the performance of these rites ; though the popular character of some of these rites, as well as certain expressions used in connection with the * revolving legend,' would lead one to suppose that they were meant to be witnessed by at least representatives of the various classes of the population.
The ritual arrangements of the Purushamedha, or human sacrifice, of which the Brdhmawa treats next, seem to have been developed out of those of the Ajvamedha. Its first three Soraa-days are essentially the same as the three days of the horse-sacrifice, except as regards the difference of victims on the second day. To these the authorities of the White Ya^fur-veda — and apparently also those of the Black Ya^s ^ — add two more days, whilst the vS^hkhayana-sOtra ^ on the other hand, recognises but one additional day. Like the Vait^na-sCltra, 5^hkh^yana also differs from the other authorities in giving an entirely different character to the central feature of this performance, inasmuch as he makes it a real human sacrifice instead of a merely symbolic one. A peculiar interest thus attaches to this difference of theory, seeing that it involves the question as to how far down the practice of human sacrifices can be traced in India ^. That such sacrifices were prac-
^ V^hilst the three Saf^^hitis contain no section relating to the Pnmsha- medha, the Taittirtya-brihmaMa (III, 4) enumerates the (symbolic) human victims in much the same way as does the V^saneyi-sa//thiti (see the present vol. p. 413 seqq.) ; and the Apastamba-silcra makes the performance similar to what it is in the White Ya^s texts. The Vait&na-s0tra of the Atharva-veda also makes it a five days' performance.
' Like the chapter on the A^vamedha, that on the Purushamedha is stated to be taken from the Mah&-Kau8httaki-br^hma»a.
» On this question see especially A. Weber, Zeitsch. d. D. M. G. 18, p. 262 fif., repr. in Indische Streifen, II, p. 54 ff.
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tised in early times is clearly shown by unmistakable traces of them in the ritualistic works ; but in this respect India only shares a once almost universal custom. The question, then, which chiefly interests us here is whether or not this practice was still kept up at the time with which we are here concerned. Now, as regards the texts of the Ys^r-veda — that is, the text-books of the sacrificial priest Kar ^ioxnv — it seems pretty clear that they no longer recognise the sacrifice of human beings ; and the same may be said of the remaining ritualistic literature with the exception of the two works above referred to with r^ard to this particular sacrifice. The points bearing on this question, being very few in number, may be briefly reviewed here.
First as regards the story of SunaJ/sepa, which is recited at the R^sOya sacrifice^, and has been several times treated before ^ King Harif>&andra, being childless, prays to Varu«a to grant him a son, vowing to sacrifice him to the god. A son is bom to him, and is called Rohita ; but, in spite of the god's repeated demands, the fulfilment of the vow is constantly deferred ; till at last the youth, having been invested in armour, is told of the fate awaiting him. He, however, refuses to be sacrificed, and escapes to the forest. The king thereupon is seized with dropsy; and the son, hearing of this, hastens homeward to save his father. On the way he is met by Indra who urges him to wander, and he accordingly does so for a year. The same is repeated five difterent times. In the sixth year, the prince, while wandering in the forest, comes across a starving Br&hman, A^igarta, who lives there with his wife and three sons, and who consents to sell him one of his sons for a hundred cows to serve him as a ransom to Varu«a. The Brahman wishing to keep his eldest son, whilst the mother refuses to part with the youngest, the choice falls upon
* See part iii, p. 95.
* Cf. Max Miiller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 108 flF. ; M. Hang, Aitareya-brahma^a, II, p. 460 ff. ; R. Roth, Weber's Ind. Stud. I,475ff.; II, ii2flf.
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* The earliest reference to the myth or story of SxmaAsepa. is in A^ig-veda I, 34, 11-X3 ; V, 2, 7, where he is apparently alluded to as having been actually
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