Canto 1 - Boyhood
Bāla-kāṇḍa
Chapter 14: The Aśvamedha Sacrifice
Text 1.14.1
अथ संवत्सरे पूर्णे तस्मिन्प्राप्ते तुरङ्गमे।
सरय्वाश्चोत्तरे तीरे राज्ञो यज्ञोऽभ्यवर्तत॥
atha saṁvatsare pūrṇe tasmin prāpte turaṅgame
sarayvāś cottare tīre rājño yajño ’bhyavartata
atha = after the sacrificial horse had been released; saṁvatsare = and one year; pūrṇe = was over; tasmin prāpte = had gradually returned; turaṅgame = when the horse; sarayvāḥ ca = of Sarayū; uttare = on the northern; tīre = bank; rājñaḥ = the king’s; yajñaḥ = sacrifice; abhyavartata = started.
After the sacrificial horse had been released, when the horse had gradually returned and one year was over, the king’s sacrifice started on the northern bank of Sarayū.
The previous chapter summarily described the inauguration of the Aśvamedha fire sacrifice after Daśaratha entered the sacrificial arena. Desiring to describe the sacrifice in detail, the author describes that the sacrifice started after the horse had returned. He restates this and describes the sacrificial performance in this chapter.
The sequence of events pertaining to the return of the sacrificial horse is as follows: When the horse is released to roam freely, four hundred persons headed by royal persons protect it so that it does not come back immediately. The four sacrificial priests—Brahmā, Adhvaryu, Hotā and Ugātā—then bring that horse to the house of a rathakāra (a carriage-builder), bind it and chant certain Vedic mantras on each of its four legs [1]. After the eleventh month, the sadasya priests take it and bind it in a grove of Aśvattha trees [2]. Then, in the twelfth month, having arranged all the paraphernalia for the sacrifice such as the sacrificial arena, on the Amāvāsyā of the month Phālguna, the four sacrificial priests enter the sacrificial arena and begin the Aśvamedha sacrifice from the Pratipat.