Ashvamedha is a sacred horse sacrifice practiced by followers of the Śrauta tradition of Vedic religion. An elaborate ritual system of Kings, Ashvamedha horse sacrifice lasts about a year, involving displays of wealth, generosity, humility and hundreds of sacrificial animals.
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The Ashvamedha sacrifice or Ashwamedha Yajna is performed by a king as a rite of kingship. The ritual is extravagant and expensive. According to one observer a total of 609 animals are sacrificed during this ritual.
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Only a powerful victorious king (rājā) can conduct Ashvamedha. One object of the rite is to acquire might and glory, including sovereignty over neighboring provinces, in part through the ancient practice of augury or hippomancy, divination by animal (horse) behavior.
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Hundreds of people, including priests, skilled workers, astrologers, and hundreds of tame and wild animals are involved. The overall ritual is complex, with precisely dictated rites at every stage. Each step must be carried out flawlessly.
The ceremony is held in spring or early summer. The sacrifice may be related to elevation or initiation of a member of the Kshatriya warrior caste, the second-highest caste in the Varna system. Workers construct a sacrificial house and fire altar.
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First, the sacred horse is chosen, traditionally a white stallion with black spots. He's also depicted as a white horse with black ears, or all-white horse. He may have a dark front or blue hair tuft. He may specifically be a stallion who won a race at the right side of the chariot.
In the Vedas, the horse is also considered analogous to Prajapati-Agni the Creator who forms the earth and skies. The horse in the Vedas symbolizes energy. Astrologers decide the right time for the horse to begin his travels.
See also Hesperus (Vesper) the Evening Star
The Laws of Manu refer to the Ashvamedha: "The man who offers a horse-sacrifice every day for a hundred years, and the man who does not eat meat, the two of them reap the same fruit of good deeds."
A sacrificial ceremony takes place in the home. The King spends the night with the Queen, but without sex. Next day the horse, purified with more rites, is tied to a post and addressed as a god. He's sprinkled with water. The Adhvaryu priest whispers mantras into his ear.
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A "four-eyed" black dog is killed with a club of Sidhraka wood. It's then passed under the horse, and dragged to the river from which the water sprinkled on the horse had come, and set to flow south.
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The horse is let loose toward northeast, to wander wherever he pleases. The time is a year or half a year. The horse is associated with the Sun, and its yearly course.
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The roaming horse is attended by a herd of a hundred geldings, and 400 young kshatriya men of 4 different classes. Sons of princes or high court officials, they're entrusted to guarding the horse from danger but never impeding or influencing his progress.
The escort also has to prevent the stallion from mating with any mares during his journey. This echoes the practice of brahmacharya, withholding of semen for spiritual empowerment. If the horse mates, an oblation or offering of milk is given to Vāyu, Hindu god of the wind.
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If the horse falls ill with an injury, an offering is made to solar deity Pūṣan. If the horse becomes ill without injury, an oblation of cake goes to Agni Vaiśvānara, the universal soul of power housed in all beings.
If he develops eye disease, an oblation to solar deity Sūrya is given. If the horse drowns, an offering is given to Varuṇa, god of sky, oceans and water.
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If the horse gets lost, an oblation of cake, potsherd, and three other dishes to the deities of heaven and earth, along with offerings to Vāyu and Sūrya. If the horse dies, another is chosen and consecrated to replace him.
While the horse is away, a series of ceremonies takes place in the home of the person making the sacrifice. Each day three daytime rites and one evening ritual are conducted by priests. Ritual measurements, astrology and surveying dictate location of sites or buildings.
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After the evening Dhṛtihoma ritual, two Brahmin and two Kshatriya bards and lutists praise the patron king's generosity. Musicians play the veena or south Indian lute. It's known the King gives 4,000 cows and 400 gold coins to the priests on the first day.
Then comes a session of pariplavākhyāna, or the cyclic recital of tales, in which one of ten topics are be discussed each night, with 36 cycles of the ten topics. The tales are witnessed onlookers who attend in their free time.
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When the horse returns, ceremonies are performed for a month. Twelve days of dīkṣā, rites performed before sacrifices, then twelve days of upasad take place. Upasad, a multiday ceremony, precedes soma sacrifices.
Soma sacrifice relates to lunar cycles, seen as necessary to maintain cosmic order. Rites are based description in the Vedas. Then the king bathes, dons a black antelope skin and sits in a hut before a fire. Head covered, he fasts in silence and sleeps on the ground.
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Soma is a ritual drink. Research suggests it as a golden volatile oil, expressed and washed from plant stalks with water. Oil and water are separated by filtering through a sheepskin. The liquid is mixed with milk, drunk by the priests and offered to the gods.
On the 25th day, the agniṣṭoma is performed. It's the main part of the sacrifice. Soma is pressed out in the morning and offered along with "rice cakes, parched barley, flour in sour milk, parched rice, and a hot mixture of milk and sour milk".
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During the pressings and oblations, five musical chants are sung and five recitations intoned. The priests then drink the soma and perform the twelve oblations to the seasons, and the sacrifice of a goat to Agni, fire god.
The similar midday pressing is dedicated to Indra, god of rain and storms. Dakshina is also distributed to the priests, consisting of a varying multitude of cows. Dakshina is a donation, fees or honorarium given to a cause, monastery, temple, spiritual guide, or after a ritual.
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At the evening pressing only two musical chants were sung and two recitations chanted. Then proceeded the conclusory libations to the "yoking of the bay horses" and the sun, followed by the Avabhṛtha.
The Avabhṛtha is the "unpurificatory" bathing of the sacrificer at the end of the sacrifice. After an antelope skin is put in the water the king, his wife, and the priests ritually bathe. A sterile cow or eleven other animals are sacrificed.
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Throughout the night, the annahoma rites are taking place at the north altar. Annahomma is an offering of clarified butter, fried rice, fried barley, and fried grain.
On the twenty-sixth day the king is ritually purified. The horse is yoked to a gilded chariot with three other horses, and parts of the Rigveda recited. The horse is then bathed with water containing a mix of mustard and sesame.
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After this he is anointed with ghee by the chief queen and two other royal consorts. The chief queen (mahiṣī) anoints the fore-quarters. The favorite wife (vāvātā) anoints the middle and the discarded wife (parvṛktī) the hindquarters.
They decorate the horse's head, neck, and tail with golden ornaments and over a hundred pearls. The horse, a hornless black-necked male goat, and a Gomṛga (type of ox) are bound to sacrificial stakes near the fire.
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Seventeen other animals are attached with ropes to the horse. The he-goat dedicated to Agni is attached to the horse's chest. A ewe dedicated to Sarasvatī (goddess of learning, arts & music) is attached under the horse's mouth.
Two black-bellied he-goats dedicated to the Aśvins (twin horsemen associated with medicine & healing) are tied to the horse's front legs. A grey male goat dedicated to Soma-Pūṣan gods of meeting and the moon, is attached underneath the horse.
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On the two sides of the horse are attached a black goat to Sūrya and a white goat to Yama, god of the dead. Two goats with shaggy thighs are dedicated to Tvaṣṭar, divine craftsman. A white goat dedicated to Vāyu is attached to the horse's tail.
A cow about to give birth is dedicated to Indra; a dwarfish cow is dedicated to Vishṇu. A huge number of animals, both tame and wild, are tied to other stakes - according to one observer, 609 in total.
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The sacrifice maker offers the horse the remains of the night's oblation of grain. The horse is then suffocated to death.
The chief queen ritually calls on the king's fellow wives for pity. The queens walk around the dead horse reciting mantras and obscene dialogue with priests. The chief queen then spends the night sleeping by the dead horse.
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Next morning the priests raise the queen from her place. One priest cuts the horse along "knife-paths" with specially crafted knives of gold, silver and iron. Others recite verses of Vedas, seeking healing and regeneration for the horse.
The horse's epiploon, part of the viscera below the liver, along with soma are offered in oblation. Priests dismember the horse and other animal victims, giving a blood offering of blood. Parts of the horse are given to various nature deities of sky, atmosphere and earth.
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The Atirātra is a soma sacrifice at night, during which the drink is consumed. Afterwards an Avabhṛtha takes place. In the Ashvamedha sinners and criminals also take part in ritual purification by bathing.
Twenty-one sterile cows are sacrificed, and the dakshina distributed to the priests. The main dakshina forms either the four wives of the king or their 400 attendants. After completion of the ritual, the king is considered undisputed ruler of the land traversed by the horse.
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While the Ashvamedha ritual is last performed in the 18th century, animal sacrifice or blood sacrifice is still in practice today. Sacrificial animals are usually goats and chickens.
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