In English
Offerings made to Gods in the sacred fire
The fire is the fire in the household - lit in the oven for cooking or boiling, in the fire-place for warming or in lamps for providing light or on sticks of incense. fire is the ritual fire kept alive in the household of the higher castes wherein is invoked the guardian deities of health, harmony and prosperity, with preliminary recitals of (). Then, there is the , the Southern Fire, lit ceremonially on occasions of need for use in rites for the dead. Since the God of Death, , is the Deity of the Southern Region, this fire is called or Southern. This is the reason why people are warned not to sleep with their heads towards the South, the direction of decay and disintegration. Of these three, the is, as can be seen, holy and adorable. The deals with or Ritual Adoration of fire, as the medium of communication with the Gods. It has two recensions: (Bright) and (Dark), associated with (Sun) and (the Creator). has as subsidiary many complementary bodies of lessons on special skills. Archery () is one such, with its four compartments' Release, Retraction, Replacement and Ritualistic Potency (, , and ). Arrows on which , , and other Gods with their Divine Energies were invoked, were used against the foes. These subsidiary sections of the have mostly been lost and so knowledge of such skills has become inaccessible. The Veda mentions many specific items that are to be used as offerings to Gods, conveyable through the emissary, fire. They are milk, curds, , grains, the juice of the plant named and what is designated as '', a term wrongly taken as meaning the diaphragm of a lamb or other sacrificial animal. It is necessary to clarify the real meaning and significance of offering the . The of a young lamb is preferable, it is said. The mind, the heart of the human child, is pure, tender, unsoiled by greed or pride. And the lamb is much more so. The Vedhic texts describe such a heart as (serene), (unattached), (abode of good), (eternal), (stable), (unblemished), (alert), (free), (unaffected), (pure). Offering the '' of the lamb means, therefore, dedicating one's heart, after rendering it soft and sweet, and not casting into the flames the diaphragm of a slaughtered kid!