DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

122 DEVELOPMENT OF THE HORSE-SACRIFICE [5.3
was no longer simply killed and cooked. The principal queen had to
couple with the dead beast to the accompaniment of an obscene
discourse, in what is clearly a fertility rite. It would seem that the horse
was a substitute for a human being (perhaps the chief himself) that
had once been sacrificed. Human victims were also to be
sacrificed in accompaniment, along with many other creatures. The
importance of the horse in Aryan warfare cannot explain the augmented
sacrifice. New elements were added as necessary. For example, the
four sacred trees Asvattha, Nyagrodha, Plaksa, Udumbara, (still
worshipped today) appear for the first time as sacred in AB. 8.16, and
7.32. A seat of Udumbara wood and sprinkling with water from a righthanded
couch shall seem obligatory at a royal consecration (Jat. 492).
Mother-goddesses in triads, 4 as also the Apsarasas are to be propitiated,
which points once again to increasing contact with non-Aryans who had
preserved matriarchal usage. Founder of several lines of punmic kinglists
were sons of such Apsarasas as Ghrtaci, Alambusa. The most famous,
Bharata, was a son of Sakuntala, herself daughter of the Apsaras Menaka.
This son Bharata was then made the eponymous progenitor of the Bharata
tribe, which is seen in the RV. without any such fictitious ancestor. The
Yajurvedic horse-sacrifice developed a remarkable new variant where the
horse was freed at the royal consecration, allowed to wander where
he liked for a fixed period, often a whole year, during which any rival
king who opposed the horse’s passage would have to be defeated. The
actual sacrifice came at the end of the year, after all challengers had been
fought off, sovereignty having thus been established. These developed
horse-sacrifices became a main feature of the epic period, particularly the
Mbk. With the TS and the Brahmana literature, however, various
types of consecration (AB. 8.14) developed, each intended to free the
chief in some way from tribal control. The tribal sabha assembly is not
mentioned at all, though we know that it continued to function. The
development of brahminism meant the development of a class
structure within the tribe with absolute kingship over the tribe. This
could have been suspected by the violence Indra exercised against
gods and fire-priests even in the Rgveda, which contains the