Sacrifice

Strengthen this sacrifice, O praises;

May the four quarters strengthen this sacrifice;

We have made the flowing pot free of disease — Tvaṣṭṛ, Vāyu, Earth, and Atmosphere.

For Indra, O Soma, you are poured around by men;

Mitra has been pressed, worthy of worship in the communities;

smite them, O Soma Pavamāna, you of wicked designs against us!

but whenever I have attended a sacrifice, that sacrifice has invariably been successful.

Many, too, have been proved to be defiled as they stood beside a sacrifice, because they prevented the proper performance of the rites.

I know furthermore, gentlemen of the jury, that if the witnesses were testifying against me that my presence on shipboard or at a sacrifice had been the occasion of some unholy manifestation, the prosecution would be treating that fact as supremely significant;

I forbade the ass-drivers, as I said, to touch the wood, and after giving notice to Phaenippus to attend the sacrifice, as the law commands, I went back to the city.

Come to our pressed soma with thy bay steeds.

They have been released for the feast of the gods, seeking prizes like chariots.

Come to our pressed soma with thy bay steeds, for the great battle-joy and for sight.

But to these sacrifices are attached.

Let us grant, then, that one can succeed to some office, so as to walk in any honour in the bare name of honour only, and neither sacrifice, nor lend his authority to sacrifices, nor let out victims, nor delegate the care of temples, nor procure their revenues, nor exhibit spectacles at his own or the public cost, nor preside over their exhibiting, nor pronounce or proclaim anything solemn, nor even swear;

the punishment is the sacrificial fee.

in the sacrifice, the master obtains the merit;

this legal procedure, when brought together, is declared to be equal to a sacrifice.

In the Kṛta age, the highest Dharma is *tapas*;

To the Brāhmaṇas he assigned teaching and studying, sacrificing for oneself and sacrificing for others, giving and receiving alms.

The Lord also created the host of the gods, whose nature is action, and the subtle host of the Sādhyas, and the eternal *yajña* (sacred sacrifice).

for all who have happened to be near at the time, as well as Meletus himself,—if he so desired, — have seen me sacrificing at the communal festivals and on the public altars.

For it has not been shown that I have sacrificed to new deities in the stead of Zeus and Hera and the gods of their company, or that I have invoked ill oaths or mentioned other gods.