Aitareya Brahmana
Aitareya Brahmana
The sacrificial and social order rests on divine intervention rescuing individuals from its own cruelest logic, a claim the text makes through the story of a boy nearly sacrificed by his own father even as it lays out how the order must otherwise be performed.
- explanation of the Soma sacrifice and royal consecration
- the Shunahshepa legend of a boy saved from sacrifice
- early theorizing of sacred kingship
- attributed to the sage Mahidasa Aitareya
Attached to the Rigveda, this Brahmana explains the Soma sacrifice and the royal consecration rite (rajasuya). It is best known outside ritual specialists for the legend of Shunahshepa, a boy sold by his father as a human sacrifice and saved by his own hymn recitation, then adopted by the sage Vishvamitra. In the story, the boy is purchased as a substitute victim for King Harishchandra's son Rohita, who had been vowed to the god Varuna but never delivered, and Shunahshepa's escape from the sacrificial post through hymns taught to him by Vishvamitra becomes the frame for explaining why the royal consecration rite carries the moral weight it does. Its material on consecration was later used to justify claims of sacred kingship.
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