183 
1872.] Rajendralala Mitra — Beef in Ancient India. 
nakshatras, or on the day when the moon is in the constellation Revati, 
or on the day of the new moon. On the day preceding the ceremony, the 
performer should celebrate the s'raditha called Ndndunuhha, and at night 
observe the UdaJcas'anti and the pratinara-bandha. The first consists in 
sprinkling holy water with appropriate mantras on the householder, and the 
latter in tying a thread on the right wrist in a prescribed form to serve as 
an emblem of engagement, to be kept on until the completion of the 
ceremony for which it is tied. In Bengal this thread is now tied only 
on the occasion of a marriage or the investiture of the sacrificial thread ; 
but in the North-West it is used for several other ceremonies. 
On the day of the ceremony, the first duty is to attend to the five 
obligatory duties of bathing, offering of water to the manes, reading of 
the Vedas, offering of oblations to the household fire, giving of alms to 
beggars, and cooking of rice for the Vaisyadevah.* The animal to be sacri- 
ficed is then to be thought’ of, while repeating the mantra beginning with the 
word Priyatitm, &c. Proceeding then to the Garhapatya fire the institutor 
and his wife should sit beside it on kus'a grass, holding at the same time a 
bundle of that article in their hands, and then thrice inaudibly and thrice 
loudly repeat a mantra, and, having duly ordained the priests, solemnly resolve 
to perform the ceremony. The Adhvaryu should now come forward, pro- 
duce in due form the sacrificial fire by briskly rubbing two pieces of wood 
against each other, sanctify it by proper mantras, light the A'havinya fire 
altar, and thereon offer oblations of clarified butter. If the fire used be 
an ordinary one, and not produced by friction, a different form of sanctifica- 
tion, is to be adopted to that recommended in the first instance. The obla- 
tions, however, are the same, and they are five-fold, the last two being in 
favor of the sacrificial post and the axe with which it is to be cut. 
Now proceeding by the eastern gate, the institutor should proceed to 
the tree from which the post is to be cut out. There, standing before the tree 
with his face to the west, he should address a mantra to the tree, and then 
anoint its trunk with a little sacrificial butter. The post being subsequently 
cut, a piece of gold is to be put on the stump, a little water is to be sprinkled 
thereon, and four offerings of butter made to it. 
The post should be five aratnis and four fingers long, each aratni being 
equal to about 16 inches, that is, of the length of the forearm from the 
inner condyle of the humerous to the tip of the little finger. From nine 
inches to a foot of the lower end of the post should remain unshorne for the 
purpose of being buried in the earth ; but above that the shaft should be 
pared and made either octagonal, or square. The top, to the extent of four 
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