[Advaita-l] Purusamedha

[Kathirasan K]

Namaste all,

Do refer to chapter 16 of Katyayana Shrauta Sutras where it mentions that
the human victim had to be either a Kshatriya or a Vaishya (if my memory
serves right). There is also an instruction to kill the victim prior to the
ritual. The above text does provide much info about the Purushamedha.

2009/9/22 Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>

> Dear friends,
>
> I feel tha there could have been Purusamedha with human sacrifice and it
> could have been performed without human sacrifice also. Quite sometime ago I
> read an interesting article regarding Ashvamedha but lost the link now. It
> says that Ashvamedha is a symbolic ritual and the real Ashva is a
> horse-shaped region in our brain, which is responsible for memory and
> learning and consequently for the human evolution. and that Ashvamedha is
> the way of activating that region.
>
> Any comment?
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> --- On Mon, 9/21/09, Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Satish Arigela <satisharigela at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Purusamedha
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 10:40 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >What a  pathetically, political interpretation of
> any rite - even the
>
> >puruShamedha. The puruShamedha is clearly an ode to the supreme,
>
> >cosmic puruSha, and the shatapatha brAhmaNa clearly forbids actual
>
> >sacrifice of the human beings.
>
>
>
> I was actually expecting that you will be the first one to get totally
> worked-up with this mention of puruSha-medha  :-)
>
>
>
> I am aware of the shatapatha brAhmaNa's description of the puruSha-medha.
>
>
>
> And why will the question of forbidding something come if it was never
> practiced
> before?
>
>
>
> What about the other references given about the ritual to pUShan being
> replaced
> by the one to three devi-s and the mention of various write-ups about the
> queen
> behaving in a similar manner as in the ashva-medha?
>
> "Another notable shrauta oblation made to revatI was in the human sacrifice
> – the puruShamedha
>
> ritual. In the ashvamedha before the horse is sent off to wander for an
>
> year an oblation is performed to pUShan pathikR^it to protect the
>
> horse. In the puruShamedha,in place of this pUShan ritual, one is performed
> to the 3 devI-s,
>
> anumatI, revatI and aditi. This is recorded in both R^igvedic and
>
> atharvavedic tradition (shA~NkhAyana shrauta 16.10.11; vaitAna shrauta
>
> sUtra 37.10.20)."
>
> Dont we see
> some similarities with the ashva-medha here?
>
> Rituals evolve overtime and some people are only suggesting the possibility
> of
> human sacrifice in a remote past. Like for example in ancient times during
> the
> upanayana for an
> atharvavedin , tongues of a few birds were used, which in later times were
> replaced by feathers of those same birds.
>
>
>
> >Does this story talk about the rest of the people
>
> >also? If not let's admit that this story is not about puruShamedha the
>
> >shrauta ritual.
>
>
>
> In Ramayana and Mahabharatha mention is made of lakhs of people taking part
> in
> yuddha-s. They dont have to narrate each and every detail about all those
> people.
>
> So is it with this story . The focus is on a few characters. Whatever
> ritual
> this sunasshepa story is talking about, it looks like some vedic ritual if
> not
> puruSha-medha.
>
>
> sa.
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Kathirasan