Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/98

88 “Agni, the friend of Indra, has quickly consumed three hundred buffaloes.”

“When thou hast eaten the flesh of the three hundred buffaloes.”

“Bestow upon him who glorifies thee, divine Indra, food, the chiefest of which is cattle.”—Vol II, p. 225; III, p. 276.

“Sever his joints, Indra, as butchers cut up a cow.”—Vol. III, p. 458; I, p. 165.

What an amount of beef-eating is implied in a sacrifice of three hundred buffaloes! the greater part, as usual, being devoured by the assistants. The cooking is very minutely and graphically described in vol. II, pp. 117, etc. Part was roasted on spits, while the attendants eagerly watched the joints, sniffing up the grateful fumes, and saying, “It is fragrant.” The queens and wives of the sacrificers assisted in cooking and preparing the banquet, which, on particular occasions, alluded to in the text, consisted of horseflesh! All was washed down with copious libations of a strong spirit, made from the juice of the soma plant. Rishi Kakshivat had in every way most unclerical propensities. He thanks the Aswins most cordially for giving him a cask holding a hundred jars of wine, (vol. I, p. 308;) and Rishi Vamadeva, who was taken out of his mother's side, solicits Indra (vol. III, p. 185) for a hundred jars of soma-juice. Rishi Agastya also, in a queer, half-crazy Sukta, (vol. II, p. 200,) writes of “a leather bottle in the house of a vender of spirits!” These were the men that fought Alexander the Great. After such a feast of the gods, Indra puts forth all his might, and destroys the fiercest of the Asuras, (the evil spirits.)

The social position of woman, this Veda demonstrates, was considerably higher than it is in modern India. She is spoken of kindly and pleasantly as “the light of the dwelling.” The Rishi and his wife converse on equal terms, go together to the sacrifice, and practice austerities together. Lovely maidens appear in a procession. Grown-up unmarried daughters remain without reproach in their father's house. Now, all this is the reverse of the Hindooism of the present day. On the other hand, we have a case of polygamy of the most shameful kind. Kakshivat, one of the