Mr. CoLEBRooKE OH tfi£ PhUosophy of the Hmdm, 459 



as utterance of certain prayers, shaving of hair and beard, measure of his 

 stature with a branch of uduinbara, &c. These and similar functions are 

 not practicable by an inanimate skeleton, and therefore are unavoidably 

 omitted.* 



Tlie full complement of persons officiating at a great solemnity is seven- 

 teen. This number, as is shown, includes the votary or principal, who is 

 assisted by sixteen priests engaged by him for diiferent offices, which he 

 need not personally discharge. His essential function is the payment of 

 their hire or sacrificial fee.t 



They rank in different gradations, and are remunerated proportionably. 

 Four, whose duties are most important, receive the full perquisite ; four 

 others are recompensed with a half; the four next with a third ; and the 

 four last with a quarter. 



On occasions of less solemnity four priests only are engaged, making 

 with thfe principal five officiating persons. A question is raised, whether 

 the immolator of a victim at the sacrifice of an animal (usually a goat) 

 be a distinct officiating person : the answer is in the negative. No one 

 is specially engaged for immolator independently of other functions; 

 but some one of the party, who has other duties to discharge, slays 

 the victim in the prescribed manner, and is accordingly termed immo- 

 lator.t 



The victims at some sacrifices are numerous : as many as seventeen at 

 the vujapej/a, made fast to the same number of stakes ; and at an aswa- 

 med'/ia not fewer than six hundred and nine of all descriptions, tame and 

 wild, terrestrial and aquatic, walking, flying, swimming, and creeping things, 

 distributed among twenty-one stakes and in the intervals between them; the 

 tame made fast to the stakes, and the wild secured in cages, nets, baskets, 

 jars, and hollow canes, and by various other devices. The wild are not to 

 be slain, but at a certain stage of the ceremony let loose. The tame ones, 

 or most of them (chiefly goats), are to be actually immolated. 



The various rites are successively performed for each victim ; not com- 

 pleted for one before they are commenced for another. But the consecra- 

 tion of the sacrificial stakes is perfected for each in succession, because the 

 votary is required to retain hold of the stake until the consecration of it is 

 done.§ 



Mim. 10. 2. 17—20. f Il>- 3. 7. 8—17. % lb. 3. 7. 13. § lb. 5. 2. 1—5. 



