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IX KANDA, 3 ADHYAYA, I BRAHMANA, 2. 207
51. And, again, as to why they bring it here,the Agni (fire-altar) which is built up here is the same as those seven persons which they made into one person; and that excellence and life-sap of them which they concentrated above, that is the fire which they now bring here, hence, when they now bring it here, they concentrate above (in the head) that excellence and life-sap which belonged to those seven persons, that is his (Agni's) head, and this built-up fire-altar is the body: having thus completed his body, he restores the head to it.
THIRD ADHYAYA. FIRST BRAHMANA. INSTALLATION AND CONSECRATION OF AGNI.
1. He then offers the Vaisvânara (cake). That Agni has now been completely restored; he now is that deity, (Agni) Vaisvânara (belonging to all men): to him he offers this oblation, and by the oblation he makes him a deity, for for whatever deity an oblation is prepared that is a deity, but not one for whom no (oblation) is prepared. It is one of twelve potsherds: twelve months are a year, and Vaisvânara is the year.
2. And, again, as to why he offers the Vaisvânara (cake), it is as the Vaisvânara that he is about to produce that Agni: on that former occasion, at the initiation-offering1, he pours him out in the form of seed; and what the seed is like that is poured
1
Cp. VI, 6, 1, 6. Whilst the initiation-offering of the ordinary Soma-sacrifice consists only of a cake on eleven potsherds to Agni and Vishnu, that of the Agnikayana requires two further oblations, viz. a cake on twelve potsherds to Vaisvânara, and a rice-pap with ghee to the Adityas; cf. part ini, p. 247 note.
