The First and the Last Offering

The gods were performing a sacrifice.

They did it on the earth, because there was nowhere else to do it. They measured their ground on her and built their fires on her, and they sat down on her to sing. And when the shares were given out, one to this god and one to that, nobody thought of giving a share to her.

Now the earth, say the priests, is Aditi.

Aditi noticed.

"How is this?" she thought. "They spread their sacrifice on me, and they shut me out of it."

She did not complain aloud. She did something quieter. She confounded the sacrifice.

The gods found that they no longer knew what they were doing. The rite slipped away from them. They could not tell what came first and what came after. They could not even see it.

They stopped and looked at one another.

"What has happened to our sacrifice? We spread it on this earth, and now it is all confusion. Why do we not know it any more?"

They thought about it, and one of them saw the answer.

"We spread the sacrifice on her and we left her out of it. She is the one who has confused it. Let us go to her."

So they went to the earth and asked her straight out.

"We were spreading the sacrifice on you, and it fell into confusion. We do not know it any longer. How did that happen?"

"You spread your sacrifice on me," said Aditi, "and you shut me out of it. That is why I confused it. Set aside a share for me. Then you will see the sacrifice again. Then you will know it."

"So be it," said the gods. "Yours shall be the opening offering, and yours the closing offering."

And at once they saw the sacrifice, and spread it out again.

They cooked a pot of rice for her. But the rite was still in five scattered pieces, and before the rice could be offered, helpers appeared, one after another.

First came Pathya Svasti, the goddess of the safe road, whom the priests call speech. They made an offering to her, and one part of the sacrifice came clear. Then Agni appeared, and through him they recognised all that is dry in the sacrifice. Then Soma appeared, and through him they recognised all that is moist. Then Savitr appeared, who stands for cattle. Last of all they offered the rice to Aditi, for whom it had been cooked.

The seasons had become muddled too, and the five directions. The same five put them back in order. Through Pathya Svasti the gods knew the north again. Through Agni they knew the east, through Soma the south, through Savitr the west.

And through Aditi they knew the direction that points straight up.

"For Aditi is this earth," the book says, "and that is why the plants and the trees grow upward on her."

Ever since, a man who sets out to offer Soma begins with a pot of rice for Aditi and ends with another. He does it, says the Brahmana, so that he may see his own sacrifice.

The two Brahmanas of the Rigveda know the same custom, and neither of them says that the earth was left out.

In the Aitareya, the sacrifice simply went away from the gods. They could do nothing without it, and they could not make out where it was. So they turned to Aditi.

"Through you let us find the sacrifice," they said.

"So be it," she said. "But let me choose a boon from you."

"Choose."

"Let the sacrifices begin from me and end with me."

They agreed. And she named something more. Through her, she said, they would know the eastern quarter. Through Agni they would know the south, through Soma the west, through Savitr the north.

That is why, this book says, there is a pot of rice for Aditi at the start and another at the finish. She did not win it by a quarrel. She asked for it as her price.

The Kaushitaki tells it differently again. Here the gods have already climbed to heaven by the opening rite. They arrive, look around, and cannot tell one direction from another.

Agni speaks first.

"Offer me one libation of butter, and I will find you one quarter."

They offer it, and he finds the east. That is why the fire is carried forward to the east.

Soma asks for the same and finds the south. Savitr finds the west, and that is why people see the sun travel westward every day. Pathya Svasti finds the north. In the north, the book remarks, speech is spoken with more understanding, and people go north to learn it.

Then Aditi speaks, and she does not ask for butter.

"Offer me one libation of food, and I will find you one quarter."

They give her rice, and she finds the zenith. Because Aditi is this earth, plants grow upright on her, and trees, and men stand upright, and the fire burns upright. Everything that rises, rises from her.