[INDOLOGY] Aśvamedha

[Caley Smith]

Dear Howard,

If you mean the original sources that would have sexual contact between the
queen and the horse,
well the original sources predate the genre of śāstra.

See the Āpastamba Śrautasūtra 20.18.4, Baudhāyana Śrautasūtra
25.29,Kātyāyana Śrautasūtra 20.6.16
Vārāha Śrautasūtra 3.4.4.15

Older than these, however, is Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 13.5.2.2

and the oldest explicit case that I know of is Taittirīya Saṁhitā 7.4.19
which opens with
*út sakthyòr g**ṛ**dám dhehi *

If, however, you mean the earliest sources that recommend the queen
*merely* lying by the head horse while omitting explicit details,
I think that might be the epics.

Best,
Caley

On Tue, Jun 14, 2022 at 12:49 AM Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:

> Dear Scholars,
>
> Regarding the stage of the Aśvamedha yajña in which the queen lies by the
> dead horse --
>
> 1. What is the the original Śāstra source that enjoins this procedure?
>
> 2. Have traditional commentators tried to sanitize thru exegesis this
> apparently strange requirement?
>
> Many thanks for any help with this,
> Howard
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20220614/6464a1ca/attachment.htm>