In plain words
For that rice flour many ants would come, mosquitoes would come, birds would come; they would eat that rice flour and be satisfied as creatures: this is how it used to go on. But today, through the influence of the Kali age, the rice flour is gone, and because lime powder is put down the ants do not come. The creatures are not satisfied.
The karmas that, from ancient times, on the authority of the Veda, an ordinary man follows even in a small task with a certain spirit of tyāga: these alone are these Vedic karmas. In this way, the five kinds of yajña: even a fool who knows none of the Vedas and śāstras, even a simple man, must do these sacred karmas in daily life and believe that these themselves are the true yajñas; this is most essential for every person.
I have already spoken of the three yajñas that belong to the vipras. Then the yajñas ordinary men perform are the five yajñas. These too we have come to know. But this Yajurveda went on laying down, separately, the yajñas that the rich, the wealthy and emperors, all of these, perform. These are the Rājasūya yāga, the Aśvamedha yāga and the Sarvamedha yāga. All three of these are performed by the very wealthy.
The Aśvamedha yāga is not merely bringing a horse of the five auspicious marks, approved by the Veda and described by the Veda, adorning the horses that bear those marks, laying some rules or other upon it and letting the horse go. It is this Yajurveda that taught its inner meaning too. Aśva means a horse. And a horse means what moves without ceasing. You must have seen it. A horse is always moving some limb or other of its body. Its leg or its tail or its ear or its muzzle: it is always moving one of them. This aśva is the one that lives in unsteadiness without ceasing. You must have seen the aśvattha tree. What is the meaning of this aśvattha? Even when there is no wind its leaves keep moving. That is, aśva is the name for the nature that moves without ceasing. Medha. This Buddhi too is just like that. Whenever you look at it, it keeps moving until sleep comes. Even in sleep it keeps moving. Saṅkalpavikalpakātmakaṃ manaḥ. Without ceasing it is saṅkalpa and vikalpa about one thing or another. It is bound up with this kind of unsteadiness. They said that what reins in this unsteady Manas is Manas. They said that to give up our life for this is itself the Aśvamedha yāga. But not content with that much alone, the rich, the emperors, kings and kings of kings too made it into a kind of pomp, took part in wars in many ways, killed those greater than themselves, and went on doing such yāgas so as to rule as sole sovereigns under one parasol.