With Ujjaya

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Sacrifice is neither praised nor condemned as such; what is condemned is killing, and what marks the difference is that the accomplished will not come to a sacrifice where blood is shed.

The question and its context

Yañña, sacrifice, was the central institution of brahminical religion and a major economic activity. Large royal sacrifices involved hundreds of animals, substantial expenditure, and the participation of the priestly class. Ujjaya, a brahmin, is asking whether this teacher is against the thing his profession exists to perform.

The answer refuses the whole question in its either-or form — I don’t praise all sacrifices. Nor do I criticize all sacrifices — and then supplies the criterion. That is the same move made with Vassakāra four discourses earlier, and it is worth noticing as a pattern in how these conversations go.

The criterion

Cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, and various creatures slaughtered: criticized. Not slaughtered: praised. There is no further condition. Nothing is said about the sacrificer’s caste, the correctness of the ritual, the deities addressed, or the metaphysics involved.

That restraint is deliberate and effective. The discourse leaves brahminical religion entirely intact except at one point, which means the objection cannot be dismissed as sectarian hostility. A brahmin can accept the criterion without abandoning his tradition, and the canon records that some did.

The reason given

Because neither perfected ones nor those who are on the path to perfection will attend such a violent sacrifice. That is the entire argument, and it is worth dwelling on what kind of argument it is.

It is not: killing is wrong, therefore do not sacrifice. It is: the people whose presence would make a sacrifice worth performing will not be there. Given that the point of a sacrifice is its fruit, and that fruit in this framework depends on the worthiness of the recipients, a sacrifice the accomplished avoid is a sacrifice that cannot produce what it is for.

The argument therefore works inside the questioner’s own economy of merit rather than against it. It says the violent sacrifice fails on its own terms. That is a more persuasive move than a moral denunciation and the verses repeat it: these huge violent sacrifices yield no great fruit.

The named sacrifices

The verse names four by their technical titles: the horse sacrifice (assamedha), the human sacrifice (purisamedha), the ‘casting of the yoke-pin’ (sammāpāsa), and the ‘royal soma drinking’ (vājapeyya), with the ‘unbarred’ (niraggaḷa).

These are real Vedic rites, the greatest and most expensive in the repertoire. The aśvamedha in particular was the imperial sacrifice, performed by kings asserting sovereignty. Naming these rather than small domestic offerings makes the criticism land at the top of the institution.

Elsewhere in the canon these same names are reinterpreted — given moral meanings in place of ritual ones — but this discourse does not do that. Here they are named and rejected as what they are.

What is praised

Niccadāna anukulayañña, rendered here ‘a regular gift as a propitious sacrifice’. The two terms are worth separating: nicca, constant or regular, and anukula, in keeping with the family, customary.

So what replaces the great rite is the ordinary standing practice of giving — small, repeated, and continuous with what a household already does. That is characteristic of how this collection handles ritual: it is not abolished but redirected toward something that can be sustained and harms nobody.

The closing verse adds the practical consequence: for a sponsor of such sacrifices, things get better, not worse. AN 4.40, the next discourse, gives the same teaching again to a different brahmin, which is the collection’s usual sign that the material was considered worth having twice.

Key terms