1 1. At the middle (Ashtakâ) and in the middle of the rainy season,
2. The four Mahâvyâhritis (and) the four (verses), They who have thirsted' (Rig-veda X, 15, 9 seq.): having quickly recited (these verses) he shall sacrifice the omentum;
3. Or (he shall do so) with the verse, 'Carry the omentum, Gâtavedas, to the Manes, where thou knowest them in the world of virtue. May streams of fat flow to them; may the wishes of the sacrificer be fulfilled. Svâhâ!'
4. (Then follow) the four Mahâvyâhritis (and) the four (verses), 'They who have thirsted' (see Sûtra 2): (thus is offered) an eightfold oblation of cooked food, together with the cut-off portions.
'Interposed to me are the seasons, and days and nights, the twilight's children. With the months and half-months I interpose another one instead of the father. To N.N. svâhâ!
'With the standing ones, with the streaming ones. with the small ones that flow about: with the waters, the supporters of all I interpose another one instead of the father. To N.N. svâhâ!
'Wherein my mother has done amiss, going astray, faithless to her husband, that sperm may my father take as his own; may another one fall off from the mother. To N.N. svâhâ!'—these four (verses) instead of the Mahâvyâhritis, if (the sacrificer) is an illegitimate child.
6. Or milk-rice (should be offered).
7 7. On the next day the Anvashtakya ceremony (i.e. ceremony following the Ashtakâ) in accordance with the rite of the Pindapitriyagña.
103:1 13, 1. On madhyâvarsha, comp. Weber, loc. cit., pp. 331, 337. Nârâyana understands not 'in the middle of the rainy season,' but 'in the middle of the year' (see his note, p. 146 of the German edition). I cannot help thinking that the word madhyâvarshe, given by the MSS. here and in Pâraskara III, 3, 13, and explained by Nârâyana, is a corrupt reading which we should correct into mâghyavarshe ('the festival celebrated during the rainy season under the Nakshatra Maghâs'), or something like that. The MSS. of Âsvalâyana-Grihya II, 5, 9 have mâghyâvarsham, mâghâvarsham, mâdhyâvarsham. Vishnu (LXXVI, 1, comp. LXXVIII, 52, and Professor Jolly's note, Sacred Books of the East, VII, p. 240) mentions 'the three Ashtakâs, the three Anvashtakâs, a Mâgha day which falls on the thirteenth of the dark half of the month Praushthapada.' Comp. Manu III, 273, varshâsu ka maghâsu ka; Yâgñavalkya I, 260.
104:5 Instead of 'N.N.' (the text has the feminine amushyai) the sacrificer inserts the name of his mother. For mâsâs, ardhamâsâs I propose to read, mâsais, ardhamâsais.
104:7 On Anvashtakya, comp. Bühler, S.B.E., XIV, p. 55; Jolly. loc. cit., p. 59.
