If in these many pages devoted to the Br[=a]hmanas we have produced the impression that the religious literature of this period is a confused jumble, where unite descriptions of ceremonies, formulae, mysticism, superstitions, and all the output of active bigotry; an _olla podrida_ which contains, indeed, odds and ends of sound morality, while it presents, on the whole, a sad view of the latter-day saints, who devoted their lives to making it what it is; we have offered a fairly correct view of the age and its priests, and the rather dreary series of illustrations will not have been collected in vain. We have given, however, no notion at all of the chief object of this class of writings, the liturgical details of the sacrifices themselves. Even a résumé of one comparatively short ceremony would be so long and tedious that the explication of the intricate formalities would scarcely be a sufficient reward. With Hillebrandt's patient analysis of the New-and Full-Moon sacrifice,[67] of which a sketch is given by von Schroeder in his _Literatur und Cultur_, the curious reader will be able to satisfy himself that a minute description of these ceremonies would do little to further his knowledge of the religion, when once he grasps the fact that the sacrifice is but show. Symbolism without folk-lore, only with the imbecile imaginings of a daft mysticism, is the soul of it; and its outer form is a certain number of formulae, mechanical movements, oblations, and slaughterings.
But we ought not to close the account of the era without giving counter-illustrations of the legendary aspect of this religion; for which purpose we select two of the best-known tales, one from the end of the Br[=a]hmana that is called the [=A]itareya; the other from the beginning of the Çatapatha; the former in abstract, the latter in full.
THE SACRIFICE OF DOGSTAIL (_[=A]it. Br._ vii. 13).
Hariçcandra, a king born in the great race of Ikshv[=a]ku, had no son. A sage told him what blessings are his who has a son: 'He that has no son has no place in the world; in the person of a son a man is reborn, a second self is begotten.' Then the king desired a son, and the sage instructed him to pray to Varuna for one, and to offer to sacrifice him to the god. This he did, and a son, Rohita, at last was born to him. God Varuna demanded the sacrifice. But the king said: 'He is not fit to be sacrificed, so young as he is; wait till he is ten days old.' The god waited ten days, and demanded the sacrifice. But the king said: 'Wait till his teeth come.' The god waited, and then demanded the sacrifice. But the king said: 'Wait till his teeth fall out'; and when the god had waited, and again demanded the sacrifice, the father said: 'Wait till his new teeth come.' But, when his teeth were come and he was demanded, the father said: 'A warrior is not fit to be sacrificed till he has received his armor' (_i.e._, until he is knighted). So the god waited till the boy had received his armor, and then he demanded the sacrifice. Thereupon, the king called his son, and said unto him: 'I will sacrifice thee to the god who gave thee to me.' But the son said, 'No, no,' and took his bow and fled into the desert. Then Varuna caused the king to be afflicted with dropsy.[68] When Rohita heard of this he was about to return, but Indra, disguised as a priest, met him, and said: 'Wander on, for the foot of a wanderer is like a flower; his spirit grows, and reaps fruit, and all his sins are forgiven in the fatigue of wandering.'[69] So Rohita, thinking that a priest had commanded him, wandered; and every year, as he would return, Indra met him, and told him still to wander. On one of these occasions Indra inspires him to continue on his journey by telling him that the _krita_ was now auspicious; using the names of dice afterwards applied to the four ages.[70] Finally, after six years, Rohita resolved to purchase a substitute for sacrifice. He meets a starving seer, and offers to buy one of his sons (to serve as sacrifice), the price to be one hundred cows. The seer has three sons, and agrees to the bargain; but "the father said, 'Do not take the oldest,' and the mother said, 'Do not take the youngest,' so Rohita took the middle son, Dogstail." Varuna immediately agrees to this substitution of Dogstail for Rohita, "since a priest is of more value than a warrior."