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156
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
1. He then performs the Satarudriya offering ! This whole Agni has now been completed: he now is the deity Rudra. Upon him the gods bestowed that highest form, immortality. Flaming he there stood longing for food. The gods were afraid of him lest he should hurt them.
2. They spake, 'Let us gather together food for him: therewith we will appease him!' They gathered for him that food, the Sântadevatya, and thereby appeased him; and inasmuch as they thereby appeased (sam) the god (deva), it is called Sântadevatya ;-Sântadevatya, doubtless, is here called mystically 'Satarudriya 3,' for the gods love the mystic. And in like manner does this Sacrificer now bestow upon him that highest form, immortality. Flaming he there stands, longing for food. He gathers for him that food, the Sântadevatya, and thereby appeases him.
3. He offers wild sesamum seeds. He (Agni) grows when he is being built up: he grows for (the consumption) of every kind of food. And wild sesamum seeds represent both kinds of food, the cultivated as well as the wild-growing: inasmuch as they are sesamum seeds they are a cultivated (kind of food), and inasmuch as they ripen on unploughed land they are wild-growing; he thus satisfies him with both kinds of food, the cultivated as well as the wild-growing.
1 Or, here, in this (atra), in the shape of this (altar) on which the fire is to be deposited.
2 That is, that whereby the deity is propitiated or appeased.
8 A fanciful etymology of Sata-rudriya, as if it were sânta (propitiated) + rudriya, instead of that which relates to a hundred Rudras'; cf. paragraph 7.
