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SATAPATHA-BRÂHMANA.
ELEVENTH KÅNDA.
THE FULL AND NEW-MOON SACRIFICE.
First ADHYÂYA. First BRAHMANA. 1. Verily, Pragapati, the Sacrifice, is the Year: the night of new moon is its gate, and the moon itself is the bolt of the gate.
2. And when one lays down the two fires at new moon", —even as one would enter a stronghold by the gate, when the gate is open, and would thence reach the world of heaven, so it is when one lays down the fires at new moon.
3. And if one lays down the fires under a (special) asterismo,-just as if one tried to enter a stronghold, when the gate is closed, in some other way than through the gate, and failed to get inside the stronghold, so it is when one lays down the fires under an asterism: let him therefore not lay down the fires under an asterism.
4. On the same day on which that one (the moon) should not be seen either in the east or in the west,
· For the performance of the Agnyâdhâna, or setting up the sacrificial fires, see part i, p. 274 seqq.
* For the Nakshatras, or lunar mansions, under which the Agnyâdhậna may be performed, see II, 1, 2, I seqq., and especially 8 II, 1, 2, 19, where the practice of regulating the time of the ceremony by the Nakshatras is discouraged.
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