representative, their symbol, and when specially devoted to them, becomes one with them-" goes to them" in death. Indeed he is of their race-devajáta. Therefore he is said to have "three forms," his

34.-PART OF A HORSE-SACRIFICE PROCESSION (LATE WALL SCULPTURE).

"highest birthplace" is with Váruna, his winged head" speeds snorting along the easy, dustless paths of heaven." Winged is his body, his spirit pervading as the wind. And immediately after this:

“The fleet courser is proceeding towards the place of slaughter, his spirit intently fixed on the gods. The goat precedes him, the wise singers follow. The courser is proceeding towards the most glorious of abodes, to the Father and the Mother" (probably Dyâus-Heaven and Aditi, for he is once called an Âditya); “for even this day will he go to the gods, most welcome to them.

The description of the actual sacrifice is given with such completeness in I., 162, that it will serve our purpose almost without any commentary:

When they lead by the bridle the richly adorned courser, the omniform goat [vishvarûpa] is led, bleating, before him. Pûshan's allotted share; he will be welcomed by all the gods. Tvashtar will conduct him to high honors. When men lead the horse, according to custom, three times around [the place of sacrifice], the goat goes before [and is killed first] to announce the sacrifice to the gods.1 The priest, the assistant, the carver [who is to divide the carcass], he who lights the fire, he who works the pressing-stones, and the inspired singer of hymns-will all fill their bellies with the flesh of this well-prepared offering. Those who fashion the post [to which the victim is to be bound], and those who bring it, and those who fashion the knob on top of it, and those who bring together the cooking vessels-may their friendly help also not be wanting. The sleek courser is now proceeding-my prayer goes with him-to the abodes of the gods, followed by the joyful songs of the priests; this banquet makes him one with the gods."

Here follows a sort of litany, long and tedious, but very curious, in which all that is the horse's own, even to the particles of his flesh that may adhere to the post, or the axe, or the nails of the sacrificing

The goat is always Pûshan's "allotted share" at sacrifices; the same at funerals. (A funeral is a sort of a sacrifice, for the dead man is offered" to Agni and by him conveyed to the gods, like any other offering). This is why a goat is harnessed to Pûshan's chariot, quite as much as on account of his rustic functions and character.

priest, and the fat that may drop from the pieces of flesh, roasting on the spit-is bid follow him and be “his own among the gods"; the same with anything that has ever been used by him or for himhis halter and blanket, his trappings and accoutrements; all the grass he ever ate, or stepped or lay or rolled on; all the vessels and implements and dishes that are going to be used to dress and cook and serve his flesh. This consecration is accompanied with the rather idle wish that nothing that will be done to him may cause him pain-neither the fire, nor the smoke, nor the seething pot; and the hymn ends as mystically as it began:

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May not thy breath of life oppress thee when thou goest to the gods; [i. e., may thy death-struggle be brief and easy']; may not the axe injure thy bodies; may not a hasty, unskilled carver, blundering in his work, cleave thy limbs wrongly. Forsooth, thou diest not here, nor dost thou suffer any injury; no, thou goest to the gods along fair, easy paths; the two harits [Indra's] and the dappled deer [the Maruts'] will be thy comrades.

17. One verse (8) of I., 163, evidently describes the sacrificial procession. "After thee, O Horse, comes the chariot; after thee, the man; after thee the hosts of the girls. . . ." As the verse ends with the statement that all the world is anxious to win the Horse's favor and that the gods themselves recognize his "heroic might" (if not even his superiority in heroic might), it has generally been taken mythically, all of it; while it is very proba

1 Bergaigne positively reads "bodies" in the plural, and interprets it as a mystical allusion to the threefold form of the Agni-and-Somahorse, with which the sacrificial horse was identified, as seen above.

ble that we have here another of those mixtures of myth and reality which are so confusing and misleading. In the Horse-sacrifice as originally instituted, and practised too, "the man" was indeed led after the horse, as the goat was led before him, and for the same purpose-to be sacrificed. For there. can be no doubt whatever that human sacrifices were part of ancient Aryan worship. As shown elsewhere,' certain premises being accepted, nothing could be more logical, necessary, even juster; it merely meant going the whole length, and it is hardly probable that any race missed this stage of cruel logic, when sentiment is not yet sufficiently developed to stay the hand armed by what is mistaken for reason. The Indo-Aryas outdid all others in plain-speaking consistency. They openly classed man among animals, counting him as the noblest and first, but still as one of them, primus inter pares, as has been felicitously remarked. Sacrifice was of two kinds : bloody and bloodless. Five "animals" are declared fit victims for the former: man, the horse, the steer, the sheep, and the goat. At a solemn sacrifice all five victims are to be immolated. Vedic rituals of undoubted authenticity-Shrauta-Sûtras and texts in the Yajur Veda, all Shrutî "revealed "-give the most detailed instructions as to the occasions of such sacrifices and the manner of them. One of these occasions was the building of city walls, when the bodies of the five victims were to be laid in the water used to mix the clay for the bricks, to which their blood was supposed to give the necessary firm

1 See Story of Assyria, ch. iv., especially pp. 118-129.

ness—and probably, consecration. Another was the Horse-sacrifice, ashvamedha. Then there was the out-and-out human sacrifice-purushamedha-which ranks still higher, and for which the victim must be a Brâhman or a Kshatriya, to be bought for a thousand cows and a hundred horses. An intensified form of purushamedha is that in which a large number of victims-166 or even 184-men of all sorts and conditions are immolated. The Shatapatha-Brâhmana itself, the most important of all, describes this wholesale slaughter-ceremony. But the ritual suddenly breaks off and drops into narrative, giving us the following legend: "Then, when the fire had already been carried around the victims (all bound to the several sacrificial posts) and they were just about to be killed, a voice was heard to speak: 'O man, do not accomplish it! If thou didst accomplish it, one man would eat the other.' To understand this, we must remember that the flesh of victims was partaken of by the sacrificers. It is therefore probably-and nothing could be more natural-the horror of cannibalism which caused the frightful practice to be abandoned, at the cost of logical inconsistency. Substitutes were used at one time, such as golden human heads. Yet the custom of associating a human victim with the horse and goat in the ashvamedha, seems to have persisted for a while. Only it is prescribed to buy for the purpose an old, decrepit, infirm leper, for whom, "going to the gods" could be only a most happy release. But even this wretched wreck must belong to one of the holiest and most illustrious Rishi families.

However, the dislike of spilling