1. They who have lost a Guru by death, or are afflicted by other misfortune, should perform on the new-moon day an expiatory ceremony.
2 2. Before sunrise they should carry their fire
4. They then should return home without looking back, bathe in water, have their hair, their beards the hair of their bodies, and their nails cut, and furnish themselves with new jars, pots, vessels for rinsing the mouth, wreathed with garlands of Samî flowers, with fuel of Samî wood, with two pieces of Samî wood for kindling fire, and with branches to be laid round the fire, with bull's dung and a bull's hide, fresh butter, a stone, and as many bunches of Kusa grass as there are young women (in the house).
5 5. At the time of the Agni(-hotra) he should kindle fire with the hemistich, 'Here may this other Gâtavedas' (Rig-veda X, 16, 9).
8 8. Having then given its place to the fire, and having spread to the west of it a bull's hide with the neck to the east, with the hair outside, he should cause the people belonging to the house to step on that (hide) with (the verse), 'Arise to long life, choosing old age' (Rig-veda X, 18, 6).
9. With (the verse), 'This I lay round the living' (Rig-veda X, 18, 4), he should lay branches round (the fire).
10 10. After having with (the words), 'A mountain (i.e. a stone) they shall place between themselves and death,' placed a stone to the north of the fire, and having sacrificed with the four (verses), 'Go hence, O death, on another way' (Rig-veda X, 18, 1-4),
246:2 6, 2. According to Nârâyana the fire means here not the sacred domestic fire, but a common kitchen fire. I doubt whether the 247:5 The text has agnivelâyâm, which Nârâyana explains by agnihotraviharanakâle aparâhne. He states that the fire should be produced by attrition of two new kindling woods (arani), mentioned in Sûtra 4. The fire thus kindled is to be used, he says, as a kitchen-fire. Herein he seems to me to have misunderstood the meaning of the ceremony; see the note on Sûtra 2. The hemistich quoted in this Sûtra (which is the second half of the same verse of which the first half is prescribed in Sûtra 2) clearly points to the sacred quality of the fire in question; it runs thus, 'Here may this other Gâtavedas carry the offerings to the gods, the knowing one.' 248:7 The person who pours out the water is, as Nârâyana says, the kartri, i.e. the performer of the whole ceremony. The word cannot be translated, as Prof. Stenzler does, der Bestatter, no funeral ceremonies being here treated of. 248:8 See above, I, 8, 9. Here Nârâyana sees that the fire is the sacred one. He says, athasabdo
249:18 See above, II, 3, 13.
