contrary to the injunctions was sufficient to spoil the whole
sacrifice with whatsoever earnestness it might be performed.
Even if a word was mispronounced the most dreadful results
might follow. Thus when Tva@s@t@r performed a sacrifice for the
production of a demon who would be able to kill his enemy
Indra, owing to the mistaken accent of a single word the object
was reversed and the demon produced was killed by Indra. But if
the sacrifice could be duly performed down to the minutest
detail, there was no power which could arrest or delay the fruition
of the object. Thus the objects of a sacrifice were fulfilled not
by the grace of the gods, but as a natural result of the sacrifice.
The performance of the rituals invariably produced certain
mystic or magical results by virtue of which the object desired

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[Footnote 1: See _S.B.E._ XLIII. pp.59,60,400 and XLIV. p.409.]

[Footnote 2: See _Ibid_., XLIV, p. 418.]

[Footnote 3: R.V.x.90, Puru@sa Sûkta.]

22

by the sacrificer was fulfilled in due course like the fulfilment of
a natural law in the physical world. The sacrifice was believed
to have existed from eternity like the Vedas. The creation of
the world itself was even regarded as the fruit of a sacrifice performed
by the supreme Being. It exists as Haug says "as an invisible thing at
all times and is like the latent power of electricity in an