May these posts which are felled and fixed in the earth, to which the sacrificial ladle has been raised, which fix the boundaries of the sacred field, gain for us from the Gods what is meet to be chosen.
Rig Veda III, 8, 7
The Adityas, the Rudras, and the Vasus, directing Earth and Heaven and earth’s airy spaces, shall bless in concord our worship and raise our emblem of sacrifice high in the sky.
Rig Veda III, 8, 8
Like swans that fly in a long-drawn-out line, so these stakes have come to us brightly colored. Raised aloft by the sages and turned to the East, they proceed as Gods to the Gods’ habitations.
Rig Veda III, 8, 9
These posts, set in earth and adorned with circles, appear to my eye like the horns of horned creatures. Upraised by the priests in supplication, may they lend us their aid at the onset of battle!
Rig Veda III, 8, 10
Yajnavalkya interrogated them with the following verses: 1. As is a mighty tree, so indeed is a man: this is true. His hairs are the leaves and his skin is the outer bark. 2. From his skin blood flows and from the bark, sap. Therefore when a man is Wounded blood flows, as sap from a tree that is injured. 3. His flesh is its inner bark and his nerves are its innermost layer of bark, which is tough. His bones lie within, as does the wood of the tree. His marrow resembles the pith. 4. A tree, when it is felled, springs again from its root in a new form; from what root, tell me, does a man spring forth after he is cut off by death?
Yajur Veda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad III, IX-Yajnavalkya and Vidaghdha, 28
