Page:Sanhitá of the Sáma Veda - trad Stevenson, 1842.djvu/13

 into another by pulling a string t i ed to it with a jerk with the one hand, while the other is slackened, and so on alternately till the wood takes fire. The fire is received on cotton or flax held in the hand of an assistant Brahman.

THE HALL OF OBLATION.

The common Yajnyasala is a room in the inner part of a Brahman's house ; it has a serpentine wall of between two and three feet high running through it, called the Yajnyavedi. This wall is divided into three parts, called the Saumika, Eshtika, and Páshtika. The floor is covered with the sacred Kusa grass with its roots cut, and regularly deposited for a carpeting. At the two ends of the Vedi, and in the centre, are the three Kundas or ‘sacred fire-places.’ The most easterly is square, the southern spherico-triangular, and the most westerly circular. These different Kundas are raised a little above the Vedi, and hollowed within to receive the fire. On great occasions like the Somayaga a large shed is constructed in the court-yard or in the fields, and fitted up for a Yajnyasảlả.

Yajnyavbdi.

Gdrhapati.

Dakshinigni.

Ahavaniya.

THE AUSTERITIES THAT ACCOMPANY THE SINGING OP THE SAMA VEDA.

The treatise called the Brahmana of the Sảma Veda is chiefly taken up in pointing out the austerities that must