A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

BRHADARANYAKA UPANISAD

sacrificed him to him-Self. Other sacrificial beasts (paSu) he delivered over to the Angels. Therefore they sacrifice the victim dedicated to Prajapati as though to the Several Angels (sarva dawatya).

The Sacrifice-that-is-the-horse (asvamedha) is verily he who intensifies (fapatz): it-Self is the Year, Prajapati. This sacrdficzal fire is the Sheen (arka): the Three Worlds (Joka) are its Hypostases (atmanah).

Twain are these, the Sheen and the Sacrificethat-is-the-Horse (asuamedha). Yet again they are One Angel, even Death (mrtyu). He who knows this, forfends mortality (punar mrtyu), death (mrtyu) gets him not, Death (mytyw) becomes himSelf, of these Angels he becomes the Unity.

This last section of the adhyaya describes the resurrection of the Horse, the perpetuation of life. Here the meaning of medhya is of primary importance. The word medhya is commonly rendered “ sacrificial,’ “fit for sacrifice,’ but these meanings are secondary to the primary sense of “ fit, strong,” “ vigorous, whole, virile,” “free from blemish.” These primary meanings are the valid ones in our context, for the sacrifice has been made already, and now life is renewed: there is a resurrection and rebecoming of the horse, a new, re-newed, horsenature, horsiness has been made whole again.

“ Beheld him intellectually,’ that is ‘‘ remembered ” him “‘‘ for as long as is a year”: that means kept him, these Three Worlds, in living being throughout the cycle of angelic time, the life-time of a Brahma-Prajapati, that isa “day ’’ of supernal time, during which the Brahman “ wakes.” His remembrance is our existence.7? But as the soul ‘‘ honours God most in being quit of God,” “it

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