Asvamedha, the Horse Sacrifice.
Of this great world both eye and soul.
His symbolic worship and offerings varied with clime and habit; and while the altars of Bal in Asia, of Belenus among the Celts of Gaul and Britain, smoked with human sacrifices, the bull[[89]] bled to Mithras in Babylon, and the steed was the victim to Surya on the Jaxartes and Ganges.
The father of history says that the great Getae of Central Asia deemed it right to offer the swiftest of created to the swiftest of non-created beings. It is fair to infer that the sun’s festival with the Getae and Aswa nations of the Jaxartes, as with those of Scandinavia, was the winter solstice, the Sankrant of the Rajput and Hindu in general. Hi, Haya, Hywor, Aswa denote the steed in Sanskrit and its dialects. In Gothic, hyrsa; Teutonic, hors; Saxon, horse. The grand festival of the German tribes of the Baltic was the Hiul, or Hiel (already commented on), the Asvamedha[[90]] of the children of Surya, on the Ganges.
The Asvamedha Ceremonies.
The Ramayana affords a magnificent picture of the Asvamedha. Dasaratha, monarch of Ayodhya, father of Rama, is represented as commanding the rite: “Let the sacrifice be prepared, and the horse[[92]] liberated from the north bank of the Sarju!”[[93]] A year being ended, and the horse having returned from his wanderings,[[94]] The sacrificial ground was prepared on the spot of liberation.
Invitations were sent to all surrounding monarchs to repair to Ayodhya: King Kaikeya,[[95]] the king of Kasi,[[96]] Lomapada of Angadesa,[[97]] Kosala of Magadhadesa,[[98]] with the kings of Sindhu,[[99]] Sauvira,[[100]] and Saurashtra [78].[[101]]
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When the sacrificial pillars are erected, the rites commence. This portion of the ceremony, termed Yupochchraya, is thus minutely detailed: "There were twenty-one yupas, or pillars,[[102]] of octagonal shape, each twenty-one feet in height and four feet in diameter, the capitals bearing the figure of a man, an elephant, or a bull. They were of the various sorts of wood appropriated to holy rites, overlaid with plates of gold and ornamented cloth, and adorned with festoons of flowers. While the yupas were erecting, the Adhvaryu, receiving his instructions from the Hotri, or sacrificing priest, recited aloud the incantations.
"The sacrificial pits were in triple rows, eighteen in number, and arranged in the form of the eagle. Here were placed the victims for immolation; birds, aquatic animals, and the horse.