Last week, a friend suggested that I should watch a debate between Javed Akhtar and Tarek Fatah that happened recently. The debate is available here. During the discussion, Javed Akhtar raised a point about the Ashwamedh and said it is not practical that similar to our past, India will leave a horse in Nepal or Bhutan and then can claim that territory as its own. It raises a vision of a monarch sending a horse in whatever territory he wants to occupy and then claim that territory as his own. Sadly, that is a wrong vision to have. The Ashwamedh doesn’t work that way even when it is done ritually. We will get to the flaw in this assumption later in this post. But first, I want to differentiate the popular notion of Ashwamedh as a ritual performed by the kings of yore, from the meditation that is expounded in the Brhad Aranayaka Upanishad.

“The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn.” This is how the Brhad Aranayaka Upanishad begins. 

The Vedas consist of two main divisions – the Mantras and the Brahmanas. The Brahmanas are a sort of commentary on the Mantras, but both have equal authority in the Sanatana (ever present) tradition. A Mantra may be in verse, with fixed feet and syllables known as a Chhanda or Meter. All such Mantras are called Richa. When the Mantra does not have a fixed meter – it is called Yajus. A Richa that can be sung is called a Saman. These three classes of Mantras have been grouped in to four compilations or Samhitas, which are – the Rg-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda and the Atharva-Veda Samhita.

Each Samhita had one or more Brahmanas. The Yajur-Veda has the Taittiriya and Satapatha Brahmana. Some of the Brahmanas have a section called Aranyaka, in which we generally find one or more Upanishads. The Upanishads constitute the Jnana-Kanda, a treatise on philosophy, while the rest of the Vedas is called Karma-Kanda – dealing with Rituals. The Brhad Aranayaka Upanishad forms the concluding portion of the Satapatha Brahmana.

As the mediation on the sacrificial horse occurs in an Upanishad, we can consider it to be a meditation devoid of any rituals. In this meditation, we use the sacrificial horse to contemplate on the creation and its source. 

The meditation is given below, my notes are in brackets as needed –

• “Om
• The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn,
• Its eye the sun (as it rises just after the dawn),
• Its vital force the air (because both are of the same nature),
• Its open mouth the fire called Vaisvanara (the presiding deity of mouth is Fire),
• The body of the horse is the year.
• Its back is heaven (because both are situated such – high),
• Its belly the sky (because both are hollow),
• Its hoof the earth,
• Its sides the four quarters (the directions of north, south etc, the horse can move about and hence the two sides can point to all the four quarters),
• Its ribs the intermediate quarters (such as north-east),
• Its organs the seasons (being part of the body that is the year),
• Its joints the months and fortnights (as they both connect – the months connect the parts of the year),
• Its feet the days and nights (as the body stands on these),
• Its bones the stars, its flesh the clouds (bones are white and the flesh floats in the belly which is the sky),
• Its half-digested food in the stomach is the sand (both consist of loose parts),
• Its blood-vessels the rivers,
• Its liver and spleen are the mountains (both are hard and elevated),
• Its hairs the herbs and trees,
• Its forepart (from the navel onward) is the ascending sun,
• Its hind part is the descending sun,
• Its yawning is the lightning (as lightning splits the clouds, so does yawning split the mouth),
• Its shaking the body is thundering (both produce sound),
• Its making water is raining,
• And its neighing is voice.”

To complete the sacrifice there is gold vessel placed in front of the horse, and a vessel of silver behind the horse. The vessels are called Mahiman indicating greatness. Further meditation is regarding them –

• “The gold vessel called Mahiman in front of the horse, which appeared about it, is the day, and its source is the eastern sea (owing to the day coming from the east),
• The silver vessel called Mahiman behind the horse, which appeared about it, is the night and its source is the western sea (owing to the night coming from the west).
• These two vessels called Mahiman appeared on the either side of the horse.
• As a Haya it carried the gods (Devas),
• As a Vajin the Celestial Minstrels (Gandharvas),
• As an Arvan the Asuras,
• And as an Asva the men.
• The Supreme Self is its stable and the Supreme Self is its source.”
• (Carrying all from the Supreme Self to the Supreme Self, through space and time.)

This concludes the meditation. 

In the Sanatana tradition, all rituals and meditation have one end goal – the seeker’s identification with the Supreme Self. In his commentary on the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad, Shankaracharya has established that anyone who does this meditation of the divine horse gets the same results as the ritualistic Horse sacrifice. 

It is said that if you really contemplate a grain of sand, you will be able to get to the source of the creation. This contemplation on the sacrificial horse is relatively easier. All of the creation that exists in space and time is assigned a place on the horse and this meditation lets you contemplate all of the creation from the source – the Supreme Self. 

May our lives be richer because you took time to read this post.