Few are
aware of how the havan, which comes from the Vedic Sacrificial ritual,
parallels sexual intercourse. Just as
the coupling of the male and female in sexual intercourse can bring into being
a new human life, so making offerings into the fire with intention and
incantation, can transform reality, bringing the desired objective into being.
In this
image we see a downward-pointing triangle—we can tell the directional aspect
from the stone at the point of the triangle—which has been used for a havan.
Although most havans have been constructed in a square shape, this image shows
one in triangular shape.
The
sacred texts have many references to this symbolic equation of sex, fertility (that
is the manifestation of the desired outcome of the ritual) and the role of the
female element as holding the transformation process (just like the womb holds
the unborn fetus). A few quotes from the series Sacred Books of the
East—particularly from the Satapatha-Brahmana which deals with ritual
procedures and details.
(Vol. 12
Part I) As seed is poured into the womb, so here. If, on the other hand, he
were to make the offering before the vashat, it would be lost, as would be the
seed poured not into the womb.
From the
sacrifice offspring is assuredly produced; and that offspring produced…is from
the union; and the offspring produced from union is produced after the
completion of the sacrifice.
The altar
is assuredly female and the veda is male. For the union the veda was made,
accordingly when he touches the alter with it during the sacrifice, a union
productive of the offspring is thereby effected.
Vol. 41,
Part 3
And
again, why he does so at new moon—when he performs the initiation, he verily
pours out his own self, as seed, into the fire-pan, the womb.
