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VIII KANDA, 2 ADHYAYA, I BRAHMANA, 4. 23
But, indeed, the first layer is this (terrestrial) world: it is this same world which, when completed, they mounted.
2. They spake, 'Meditate ye!'-whereby, doubtless, they meant to say, 'Seek ye a layer! Seek ye (to build) from hence upwards!' Whilst meditating, they saw this second layer: what there is above the earth, and on this side of the atmosphere, that world was to their mind, as it were, unfirm and unsettled.
3. They said to the Asvins, 'Ye two are Brahmans and physicians: lay ye down for us this second layer!'-'What will therefrom accrue unto us?'— 'Ye two shall be the Adhvaryus at this our Agnikityâ. So be it!'-The Asvins laid down for them that second layer: whence they say, 'The Asvins are the Adhvaryus of the gods.'
4. He lays down (the first Âsvini1 brick, with
1 The main portion of the special bricks of the second layer consists of five, or (if, for the nonce, we take the two southern sets of half-bricks as one) of four sets of four bricks each, or of together sixteen bricks, each measuring a foot square, placed on the range of the retahsık bricks so as to form the outer rim of a square measuring five feet on each side, and having in the middle a blank square of nine square feet. Each of the four sides of the retahsık rim contains a complete set of four bricks, but as there are five bricks on each side, the one in the left-hand corner (looking at them from the centre of the square) is counted along with the adjoining set. Each set, proceeding from left to right (that is, in sunwise fashion), consists of the following bricks,-âsvinî, vaisvadevi, prânabhrit, and apasyâ, the last of these occupying the corner spaces. The southern bricks consist, however, of two sets of half-bricks (running with their long sides from west to east), counted as the second and fifth set respectively. The eastern and western bricks are laid down so that their line-marks (which, in the case of the bricks of the second and fourth layers, are of an indefinite number) run from west to east; whilst those of the southern
