[INDOLOGY] Altar of Fire / goats

[Witzel, Michael]

The vegetable substitution is the (already Vedic) piṣṭápaśu one.

The 11 packets of vegetables are tied to the offering pole:
as one observer at the 2011 Atiratra-Agnicayana told me: she felt very queasy looking at that...

Amusingly, it was the Communist Party of Kerala that saved the 11 goats in 1975: they had used it for propaganda (among others, against te foreigners taking part in the ritual).

Now the piṣṭápaśu substitution is the standard Kerala procedure, but not in other traditional areas of Vedic ritual (Andhra delta, Kaveri)

M.W.

On Aug 24, 2020, at 6:33 PM, Tracy Coleman via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:

Dear Indologists,

In the documentary film Altar of Fire, one of the priests discusses the deliberations surrounding the traditional goat sacrifices and reports that they decided not to sacrifice the goats in this Agnicayana.  What exactly do they substitute for the goats?

Thank you for your help.
Wishing everyone well,

Tracy Coleman
Colorado College

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Michael Witzel
Wales Prof. of Sanskrit, Dept. of South Asian Studies, 1 Bow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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witzel at fas.harvard.edu<mailto:witzel at fas.harvard.edu>
www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm





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