(1) Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies Vol. 53, No.2, March 2005
Night Ritual in Asvamedha:
An Outline of the Rite Described in the Old Srauta-Sutras of the Taittir-iya School
Hideki TESHIMA
1. Night Ritual on the First Day of Asvamedha
Asvamedha, the horse sacrifice performed by strong kings in ancient India, is one of the greatest and most complicated vedic rituals. In this ritual there are many char-acteristic ceremonies which are not found in other vedic rituals. It is well known, for example, that the horse is let off to roam for a long period of time, and an armed troop should accompany the horse for guarding it against any aggression of en-emies. Furthermore, large numbers of sacrificial animals to be slaughtered together with the horse are of the most important feature of this ritual as well as a symbolic copulation of the horse and principal queen (inahisi-) of the sacrificer king.
The present paper deals with Night Ritual1) which takes place on the first day of main ritual of the Asvamedha for three days. Although the Night Ritual is much characteristic and interesting from the viewpoint of cultural history of India, it has scarcely drawn any interest of scholars. Now we should take notice of that the form and the procedure of this rite varies in each of the vedic schools considerably. The Vajasaneyin school, for instans, has very simple prescription, according to which Adhvaryu priest executes Food Offerings (annahoma-) at the Ahavan-iya fire through the night. And description of this rite in L'asvamec/ha by P.-E. DUMONT (Paris-Lou-vain 1927), the most important study of the Asvamedha, bases exclusively upon the texts of Vajasaneyin school, so that it has been hardly known that some other vedic
schools transmit the same rite on much larger scale.
The most large-scale and complicated form of the Night Ritual is transmitted in Baudhayana-Srauta-Sutra (=BSS) and Vadhula-Srauta-Sutra (=VSS), both belonging to the Taittiriya school of the black Yajurveda. These two texts are regarded as the oldest Sutras of that school and as very important for study on historical evolution
(2) Night Ritual in Asvamedha (H. TESHIMA)
of the vedic rituals. On VSS said, we however have no reliable complete edition yet because of condition of its manuscripts with many lacunae, so that the text of VSS has been regarded always as a secondary source. It would be also a cause of that the scholars have overlooked the large-scale Night Ritual.
In recent time, however, Dr. Yasuke IKARI (professor emeritus of Kyoto University) discovered in the south India some important Vadhula manuscripts which were just the original sources of the manuscripts known before, and basing this discovery Dr. IKARI already published his new edition of several parts of VSS2). At present, I am working under his guidance on emendation of Asvamedha part in VSS (eleventh chapter) which contains a detailed description of the Night Ritual (VSS11.5.1-3 [=11.15-17]). In the present paper I would like to give an outline of the large-scale Night Ritual transmitted in the old Taittiriya school, procedure of which is less known yet, described in VSS3) and BSS. This work will be a short introduction to further study on the Night Ritual in my forthcoming report.
2. Outline of the Night Ritual in VSS and BSS
2.1 Preparation of Oblatory Materials VSS11.5.1.1-2; BSS15.18[22:3,1h-18]: On the first day of main ritual of the Asvamedha, one celebrates an Agnistoma and pre-pares oblatory materials for the Night Ritual. One brings masses of 10 kinds of foods including clarified butter, honey, several kinds of processed grains etc.') near to the fire altar (agniciti-). Clarified butter is main oblation and used also for mixing the other kinds of foods.
indranas-)VSS11.5.1.3-11; 2.2 Setting of Fort (pur- and Carts of Indra BSS15.19[223,18-224,5]: In the Night Ritual, the oblatory materials above mentioned should be poured into the sacred fire in an enclosing wall which is called pur- (fort) in VSS (in BSS: devapur-, fort of gods). This fort has a door and rises to same height of the Agnistha post (the middle post) of 21 aratnis (about 8 meters) high. It is in the square form and built on the main body (iltinan-) of the fire altar. But the fort may be enlarged on wings (paksa-) and tail (puccha-), for covering the entire body of the altar. Inside the fort, so on the fire altar, one heaps up a mass of hilva timbers as firewoods for sacred fire. One clays up the head of Agnistha post wich is placed near the fort, in order to protect it from the fire. Then several carts called
(3)
Night Ritual in Asvamedha (H. TESHIMA)
(cart of Indra) are set around the fort. Each cart is 21 aratnis high, and from the top of the carts the priests should pour the oblations into the fire. Number of the carts is four (set on the cardinal points) or eight (set on the cardinal points and the intermediate points ).
2.3 Beginning of the Rite VSS11.5.1.12-17; BSS15.19[224,5-9]: Participants of the Night Ritual are 34 priests as follows: [1] an Adhvaryu; [2] a Pratiprasthatr; [3]-[22] 20 persons of other Pratiprasthatr; [23]-[32] 10 persons of assistants called As'-vamedhavid (VSS) or Ratrikarmin (BSS); and [33]-[34] 2 assistants called Upasayas Ms) or Ratrikarmins (BSS) who sometimes perform the offering acting for the Ad-hvaryu and the Pratiprasthatr. After sunset, the priests ascend the carts of Indra and begin their offering. When 4 carts are set around the fort, then 4 priests ascend each of the carts (VSS). According to VSS, one prepares the following sacrificial utensils: [1] small spoons (sruva-) with long grip for pouring the Ajya; [2] large spoons made of the bottle-gourd (alubuclarva-; in BSS: anuvesa- or darvi-) with long grip for pour-ing the foods (anna-) made of grains, clarified butter, honey. etc.; and [3] bamboo baskets (astama-). According to BSS, the priests use the bamboo baskets for carry-ing the oblatory grains as well as earthen bowls (sthuli-) for carrycarry-ing the Ajya. 2.4 Procedure of the Offerings VSSI 1.5.1.21-28; BSS15.19 [224,9-12]: The procedure of offerings is as follows: [1] First, the Adhvaryu offers the foods (anna-) while pro-nouncing Taittiriya-Samhita (=TS) 7.5.12a datvute svuhu (to the toothed svuha!), and then offers the Ajya while pronouncing ibid. b adantukuya svuhu (to the toothless svuha!); [2] Successively he offers the Ajya with some prescribed Anuvakas from TS (see the prescriptions in 2.5 and 2.6 below). When the Adhvaryu performs the offer-ings, other priests also do it without pronounciation of any Anuvaka.
2.5 Offerings in the First Half of the Rite VSS 11.5.1.18 -2 0; BSS 15.19 -2 0 [2 24,12-225,5]: Until the Vasativaripariharana (carrying of water by the Adhvaryu) taking place late at night, a preliminary rite of the Soma ritual, the Adhvaryu uses the following Anuvakas by his offering of Ajya (=[2] in 2.4 above).
Anuvakas prescribed in VSS: [1] TS7.1.14; [2] TS7.1.13; [3] TS7.1.15; [4] TS 7.1.16; [5] TS7.1.17; [6] TS7.1.18; [7] TS7.1.19; [8]-[17] TS7.2.11-20; [18]-[19] TS7.4.13-14.
Anuvakas prescribed in BSS: [1] TS7.3.15; [2] TS7.1.14; [3] TS7.1.15; [4] TS 7.1.16; [5] TS7.1.17; [6] TS7.1.18; [7] TS7.1.20; [8] TS7.3.15; [9] TS7.3.16; [10]-[11] TS7.3.17-18;
( 4 ) Night Ritual in Asvaniedha (H. TESHIMA)
[12] TS7.3.19; [13] TS7.3.20; [14]-[15] TS7.4.13-14; [16] TS7.4.21; [17] TS7.4.22; [18]TS 7.5.11 (according to eke).
2.6 Offerings in the Second Half of the Rite VSS11.5.1.32-339; BSS15.20-22[225,5-13]: After having performed the Vasativaripariharana, the Adhvaryu starts his offer-ing again. He pronounces Anuvakas of TS7.2.11-205) by his offering; of Ajya (=[2] in 2.4 above), and this series of 10 Anuvakas should be repeated until sunrise.
2.7 Conclusion of the Rite VSS11.5.2.30-32,39, 11.5.3.1-2; BSS15.22[226,1-4]: Ac-cording to VSS, the Adhvaryu descends the cart of Indra at sunrise and performs the last oblations with the ending part of TS7.2.20 while staring at the sun: udyute
(to the rising) svdhu (=sv.), uditqiva (to the risen) sv., suvatgcil'a (to heaven) sv., lolciiva (to the world) sv., survasmnai (to all) sv. According to BSS, he pronounces the passage from udituya sv. to scirvasmai sv.. After conclusion of the Night Ritual, one draws the carts of Indra away and removes the fort from the fire altar. According to VSS, the rest of the oblatory materials should be carried partly to the Adhvary u's house (probably as a fee for his execution of the rite).
1) This rite has been called by scholars "Food Offerings" or "Food Oblations" (annna-homi h) until now. But this name of the rite was probably one which stammed from the tradition of Vajasanein school. The old Taittiriya texts call the same rite "Ritual Perfor-mance at Night" (rutrihcaranait, VSS11.5.1.1) or "Offerings at Night" (nuktumhomuli, Tait-tiriya-Brahmana3.8.15.1;18.6). Thus the tradition of Taittiriya school seems relate the name of the rite to the time in which the rite takes place (cf. name of priests for this rite in BSS: rutrikarmin-). Taking account of it, I would like to call the rite of the old Taittiriya texts the Night Ritual. 2) Cf. Yasuke IKARI, "A Survey of the New Manuscripts of the Vadhula School: MSS. of Kl and K4": in ZINBUN vol. 33 (1998).
3) In the present paper we use the numbers of VSS text following preliminary IKARI-TESHIMA edition (in preparation). 4) Cf. VSS11.3.2.34; BSS15.16[220,7-10] [1] clari-fied butter (ghorta-); [2] honey (madhu-); [3] threshed grains (tandula-); [4] flattened rice (pi-); [5] parched rice unthreshed (luju-); [6] threshed, parched and ground grains to which one water adds last (karumhha-); [7] threshed and parched grains (ClhLln -); [8] ground dhanu- (saktu-); [9] lentils (masi7sya-); [10] threshed grains of panicum italicum (pri yan(Yutandulu-).
<Key Words> Asvamedha, Annahoma, Night Ritual, Vadhula-Srauta-Sutra
(Lecturer, Kyoto Seika University)
