438 ON THE VEDAS, 



that human sacrifices were not authorized by the Veda 

 itself: but were either then abrogated, and an em- 

 blematical ceremony substituted in their place ; or 

 they must have been introduced in later times, on 

 the authority of certain Purmias, or Tantras, fa- 

 bricated by persons, who, in this as in other mat- 

 ters, established many unjustifiable practices on 

 the foundation of emblems and allegories, which 

 they misunderstood. 



» 

 The horse, which is the subject of the religious 

 ceremony called As^wam^d'ha, is also, avowedly, 

 an emblem of Viraj, or the primeval and univer- 

 sal manifested being. In the last section of the 

 Taittiriya Yajuroida, the various parts of the horse's 

 body are described, as divisions of time, and por- 

 tions of the universe : ' morning is his head ; the 

 sun, his eye ; air, his breath ; the moon, his ear ; 

 &c.' A similar passage in the 14th book of the 

 S'atapafha brahman a describes the same allegorical 

 horse for the meditation of such, as cannot per- 

 form an Js'wamid'ha ; and the assemblage of living 

 animals, constituting an imaginary victim, at a 

 real As'wamkdlia^ equally represent the universal 

 being, according to the doctrines of the Indian 

 scripture. It is not, however, certain, whether 

 this ceremony did not also give occasion to the in- 

 stitution of another, apparently not authorized by 

 the Vedas, in which a horse was actually sacrificed. 



The Vrlhad araiiyaca, which constitutes the 

 fourteenth book of the S'atapafha hrahmaria^ is 

 the conclusion of the Vajasaneyi, or white Yajush. 

 It consists of seven chapters or eight lectures : and 

 the five last lectures, in one arrangement, correspond- 

 ing with the six last lectures in the other, form a 

 theological treatise entitled the Vrihad Upanishad, 



