Talk:Shatapatha Brahmana

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• The serpents are these worlds.
  • Satapatha Brahmana SB VII 4, 1, 25ff , Quoted from Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Chapter 8

• Verily, in the beginning this [world] was water… The waters desired a way to be reproduced… When they were heated up a golden egg was produced… In a year’s time… Prajapati [=Lord of creatures, Creator-god] was produced therein... He broke open this egg.
  • Satapatha Brahmana SB XI 1, 6, 1-2, Quoted from Kazanas, N. (2009). Indo-Aryan origins and other Vedic issues. Chapter 8

• The nymph Urvasi loved Pururavas, the son of Ida. When she wedded him, she said, ‘Thrice a day thou shalt embrace me; but do not lie with me against my will, and let me not see thee naked, for such is the way to behave to us women.’ XI.5.1.1 She then dwelt with him a long time, and was even with child of him, so long did she dwell with him. Then, the Gandharvas said to one another, ‘For a long time, indeed, has this Urvasi dwelt among men: devise ye some means how she may come back to us.’ Now, a ewe with two lambs was tied to her couch: the Gandharvas then carried off one of the lambs. XI.5.1.2 ‘Alas,’ ‘she cried, ‘they are taking away my darling, as if I were where there is no hero and no man!’ They carried off the second, and she spake in the selfsame manner. XI.5.1.3 He then thought within himself, ‘How can that be (a place) without a hero and without a man where I am?’ And naked, as he was, he sprang up after them: too long he deemed it that he should put on his garment. Then the Gandharvas produced a flash of lightning, and she beheld him naked even as by daylight. Then, indeed, she vanished: ‘Here I am back,’ he said, and lo! She had vanished. Wailing with sorrow he wandered all over Kurukshetra. Now there is a lotus-lake there, called Anyatahplaksha: He walked along its bank; and there nymphs were swimming about in the shape of swans. XI.5.1.4 And she (Urvasi), recognizing him, said, ‘This is the man with whom I have dwelt.’ They then said, ‘Let us appear to him!’ – ‘So be it!’ she replied; and they appeared to him. X.4.1.5 He then recognized her and implored her…”
  • Satapatha Brahmana XI.5.1, as translated by Julius Eggeling [1903(1963): 68-74] quoted in Is There Vedic Evidence for the Indo-Aryan Immigration to India? By V. Agarwal

• “This discourse in fifteen verses has been handed down by the Bahvrikas. Then her heart took pity on him. XI.5.1.10 She said, ‘Come here the last night of the year from now; then shalt thou lie with me for one night, and then this son of thine will have been born.’ He came there on the last night of the year, and lo, there stood a golden palace! They then said to him only this (word), ‘Enter!’ and then they bade her go to him. XI.5.1.11 She then said, ‘Tomorrow morning the Gandharvas will grant thee a boon, and thou must make thy choice.’ He said, ‘Choose thou for me!’ – She replied, ‘Say, Let me be one of yourselves!’ In the morning the Gandharvas granted him a boon; and he said, ‘Let me be one of yourselves!’ XI.5.1.12 They said, ‘Surely, there is not among men that holy form of fire by sacrificing wherewith one would become one of ourselves.’ They put fire into a pan, and gave it to him saying, ‘By sacrificing therewith thou shalt become one of ourselves.’ He took it (the fire) and his boy, and went on his way home. He then deposited the fire in the forest and went to the village with the boy alone. [He came back and thought] ‘Here I am back;’ and lo! It had disappeared: what had been the fire was an Asvattha tree (ficus religiosa), and what had been the pan was the Sami tree (mimosa suma). He then returned to the Gandharvas. XI.5.1.13 They said, ‘Cook for a whole year a mess of rice sufficient for four persons; and taking each time three logs from this Asvattha tree, anoint them with ghee, and put them on the fire with verses containing the words “log” and “ghee”: the fire which shall result therefrom will be that very fire (which is required).’ XI.5.1.14 They said, ‘But that is recondite (esoteric), as it were. Make thyself rather an upper arani of Asvattha wood, and a lower arani of Sami wood; the fire which shall result therefrom will be that very fire.’ XI.5.1.15 They said, ‘But that also is, as it were, recondite. Make thyself rather an upper arani of Asvattha wood, and a lower arani of Asvattha wood: the fire which shall result thereform will be that very fire.’ XI.5.1.16 He then made himself an upper arani of Asvattha wood, and a lower arani of Asvattha wood; and the fire which resulted therefrom was that very fire: by offering therewith he became one of the Gandharvas. Let him therefore make himself and upper and a lower arani of Asvattha wood, and the fire which results therefrom will be that very fire: by offering therewith he becomes one of the Gandharvas.” XI.5.1.17
  • Satapatha Brahmana XI.5.1, as translated by Julius Eggeling [1903(1963): 68-74] quoted in Is There Vedic Evidence for the Indo-Aryan Immigration to India? By V. Agarwal

• By offering the Råjasæya he becomes Råjå and by the Våjapeya he becomes Samrå™, and the office of Råjan is lower and that of Samraj the higher. A Råjå might indeed wish to become a Samrå™, for the office of Råjan is lower and of Samråj the higher; but the Samrå™ would not wish to become a Råjå for the office of the Råjan is lower, and that of Samråj the higher.
  • (V.1.1.13) in (in Lal, B. B. (2005). Can the Vedic people be identified archaeologically?–An approach. IT, 31, 173-194.)

Quotes about the Shatapatha Brahmana

• A simulation using the software SkyMap Pro in conjunction with Pancang2 has been used to verify that the statements in Satapatha Brahmana about the Krrttikaas [=Pleiades] never swerving from the east and about Saptarsis [=the Bear, Ursa Major] rising in the north [relate(?)] to events that could have been observed aroung 3000 BC.
  • Achar N 1999 ‘Exploring the Vedic Sky with Modern Computer Software’ EJVS 5-2. EJVS 5·2, 1999

• Immediately after Jacobi, Tilak, and Thibaut had published their opinions, another astronomer, Sankar B. Dikshit, published a short article in Indian Antiquary. He had come across a passage in the Satapatha Brahmana (ii.1.2. 2-3) that added support to Jacobi's and Tilak's contention that Krttika once corresponded to the vernal equinox. Intending originally to publish a detailed paper on the matter, after the astronomical debate suddenly erupted, he was inspired to immediately bring his findings to the at- tention of the Indological community. He translates the passage as follows:
  "[One] should,therefore, consecrate [the sacred fires] on Krittikah. These, certainly, do not deviate from the Eastern direction. All other naksatras deviate from the Eastern direction" (S. B. Dikshit 1985, 245).
  Dikshit interpreted the passage as indicating that Krttika was situated due east, as opposed to the other stars which were either to the left, or to the right of this point. This suggests that they were situated on the celestial equator during the vernal equinox, or that their declination was nil when the passage was composed. Nowadays, Krttika is to the north of the celestial equator, due to the precession of the equinoxes. Dikshit calculates that the brightest star of this naksatra would have been on the equator around 2990 B.C.E.
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12

• The Shatapatha Brāhmana, for instance, narrates the oft-quoted legend of Videgha Māthava, probably king of Videha (a region generally identified with a part of north Bihar), who was ‘on the Sarasvatī’. Māthava, the story goes, carried Agni, the divine Fire, in his mouth; his family priest invoked the Fire so efficiently that Agni ‘flashed forth’ from the king’s mouth and fell on the earth. Agni then ‘went burning along this earth towards the east . . . He burned over all these rivers’, stopping finally at the Sādanīrā (identified with the Gandak river). Agni instructed Māthava to take up his abode ‘to the east of this river’. The text adds that ‘in former times’, that region was ‘very marshy because it had not been tasted by Agni’ but ‘nowadays, however, it is very cultivated, for the Brāhmans have caused Agni to taste it through sacrifices’. Agni, falling to the ground near the Sarasvatī, appears to be one more image of the river’s drying up. The king—followed, we may assume, by his clan—then migrated eastward to the Gangetic region and resettled there.
  • quoted from Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India. Shatapatha Brāhmana, 1.4.1.10-19. See Eggeling, Julius, The Satapatha Brāhmana°, pp. 104-06.

• The Satapatha Braahman-a (2.1.2.3) has a statement that points to an earlier epoch where it is stated that krttikaa (ie the Pleiades] never swerve from the east. This corresponds to 2950 BCE.”
  • (1994: 35), Kak S. 1994, The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda, N Delhi. quoted in Kazanas N, A new date for the Rg veda

• “… The passage [Śat. Br. II.1,2,3. …] in which we read that the Pleiades “do not swerve from the East” should probably not be interpreted as meaning that they rose “due east” (which would have been the case in the third millenary B.C., and would point to a knowledge of the vernal equinox): the correct interpretation is more likely that they remain visible in the eastern region for a considerable time – during several hours – every night, which was the case about 1100 B.C. [I am indebted for this explanation to Professor A. Prey, the astronomer of our University, who informed me that, in about 1100 B.C. the Pleiades rose approximately 13º to the north of the east point, approaching nearer and nearer the east line, and crossing it as late as 2 h 11 m after their rise, at a height of 29º, when seen from a place situated at 25º North latitude. They thus remain almost due east long enough to serve as a convenient basis for orientation. This interpretation of the passage is proved to be the correct one, by Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra 27,5 (cf. W. Caland, Uber das rituelle Sūtra des Baudhāyana, Leipzig 1903, pp. 37 ff.), where it is prescribed that the supporting beams of a hut on the place of sacrifice shall face east, and that this direction shall be fixed after the Pleiades appear, as the latter “do not depart from the eastern region.” It is true that, about 2100 B.C. or about 3100 B.C., the Pleiades touched the east line earlier, but they proceeded southwards so rapidly that they were not suitable for orientation.] …”.
  • Winternitz, Moriz. 1927. A History of Indian Literature, Vol. 1: Introduction, Veda, National Epics, Purāṇas, and Tantras. Trans. by Mrs. S. Ketkar and rev. by the author. [Calcutta]: The University of Calcutta. (Rpt., New York: Russell and Russell, 1971; Original, Leipzig: C. F. Amelang, 1905-1908).
  • quoted in STEPHAN HILLYER LEVITT INTERPRETING THE VEDIC TRADITION