A ritual sometimes inserted into the soma sacrifices between the diksa and the three pressing days is the pravargya, basically an offering to the Asvins and a few other deities of hot milk (cow’s and goat’s) plus ghee and curds. It is often referenced as gharma, heat. Since it should be added during a second or third soma sacrifice, not the soma-initiating agni-stoma for the couple, it has an eccentric place in the sutras. The emphasis on heat brings to mind the cosmo
gonic theme of tapas, heat, emergent from the dark primordial waters, as in the famous late hymn of the Rg Veda, the nasadiya sukta, 10.129.3. In studied preparation for the pravargya the sacrificer is supposed to encourage his inner tapas. Both Tapas and Gharma are personalized as divine powers. The sun (Savitr, Surya), source of light as well as heat, is thought to be strengthened by this offering, just as in the two daily agni-hotra.
A focus, however, on one implement of crucial import seems almost pre dictive of later devotional Hinduism. That object, known as Maha-vira, “great hero,” is a three-tiered terra-cotta pot resembling a seated figure with head, torso, and lower body. BSS has him created on the ritual ground from three clay pinda, suggestive of funerary or ancestral symbolism in some early ver sion. ApSS 15.15.1 takes great pains to create a human effigy by careful place ment of sacrificial tools against the clay pot to represent all the bodily features of Maha-vira: hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, right down to intestines, penis, muscles, and nerves. For example, the veda munja-grass brush (“Brahma’s moustache”) puts invisible hair on the unfired clay “head,” a black antelope hide covers the pot with skin and body hair, curds and honey infuse blood, crumbs of two baked purodasa loaves make nerves, and so forth. Such an effigy calls to mind funerary texts, on one hand the cremation with sacrificial imple ments placed on the body (e.g. Baudhayana Pitrmedha Sutra 3.3),42 and on the other hand the use of pratima or prati-rupa described in the construction of a temporary “carry-over” body for the naked preta spirit after death.43
Becoming Agni 219
The pot is briefly enthroned in the manner of the soma stalks before they are pounded and then Maha-vira is anointed with ghee. Special wooden tongs enfold and lift the molded three-leveled pot from the firing embers as the sacrificer addresses it: “I encompass you with heaven and earth.” It is seated on munja grass on a disk of silver as a gold piece covers it. Maha-vira, also addressed as Gharma, is identified with the sun and called Prajapati, lord of creatures, and other supreme titles. The head serves as bowl above a cen
tral channel meant for the hot liquid offering to fill and then boil over “in all directions” and flash in the fire. AB 4.1–5 is a brief passage on the pravargya homologizing this moment to creation, milk as semen overflowing from pri apic Maha-vira into Agni as birthplace of the gods.
In addition to milk and ghee, libations also include dadhi-gharma, hot curds. Two purodasa loaves are offered, the first to day, the second to night. The rite must be completed before sunset and no person should bring the sacrifice to a halt by casting a shadow on the pot. There is a BSS option for the sacrificer to be sole drinker of remnants after the offering but ApSS has them shared with the priests and Konasima aligns with the latter.
The wife, normally with specified mantras and kriya in sacrifices, has a limited role since the patni sala is screened from viewing preparation of Maha-vira. At the prompting of the prati-prasthatr, however, she recites TA 4.7.19 and in the closing ceremony outside the sadas she sings a saman along with the six priests involved, the basic three, hotr, adhvaryu, and brahman, plus agnidhra, prati-prasthatr, and prastotr, the last singing from the Sama Veda so that all four Vedas are present. When asked what happens to Maha-vira when the sacrifice is concluded Konasima Brahmans were not of one mind, men tioning immersion in the river, abandonment on an island, and delivery to the uttara-vedi as options.
Hans van Buitenen understood the pravargya as a mystery rite focusing on the central icon, Maha-vira, that he renders as “Large man.” His exegesis uncovers not only a break with a Vedic aniconic tradition but also certain fea tures unusual in srauta ritual, including the use of a special fire just north of the garha-patya, an implement of clay, not wood, made on the ritual ground, and the worship of an anthropomorphic figure, quite unlike the use of a gold man (purusa) in the agni-cayana. In his view the rite evolved from a simple libation of hot milk and ghee to the Asvins in the time of the RV and AV to the actual worship of the Maha-vira figure and incorporation into the soma
schedule of six pravargya, morning and afternoon for three successive days, the intention being to encourage the sun’s victorious emergence from the rainy season. The pravargya serves as well as an illustration of ritual expansion from simple to complex.44
[[220]]