Pashubandha
पशुबन्ध
Occasional rites tied to a calendrical occasion (new moon, full moon, season-change) — required when the occasion arises, not at will.
Category
Naimittika (occasional, calendar-bound)
Duration
2
Priests required
11 ritviks
Purpose
An animal-offering ishti historically performed at half-yearly intervals or as a constituent (pashu) of larger soma sacrifices. In its Shrauta-era form a single bound animal — typically a goat — was offered with elaborate prescribed mantras.
Deities invoked
- • Agni
- • Soma
- • Vayu
- • Surya
- • Agni-Soma jointly
Mantra source
Krishna Yajurveda Taittiriya Samhita 1.3, Shatapatha Brahmana 3.6–8, Apastamba Shrauta Sutra 7
Material offerings
- • One bound he-goat (in the historical Vedic-era form)
- • Ghee
- • Rice cake
- • Sacred kusha grass
- • Yupa (sacrificial post) of khadira wood
Items listed are those prescribed in the Shrauta texts. This page does not provide procedural instruction.
Modern status
Not performed in any living tradition today
Not performed in any living tradition today. From the medieval period onward the orthodox Smarta tradition substituted a pishtapashu — an animal effigy made of rice flour or barley dough — wherever the texts prescribe a bound animal, in line with the post-Puranic emphasis on ahimsa. The rite is therefore a subject of textual and historical study only.
Historical significance
The pashubandha is the earliest formal animal-sacrifice rite of the Shrauta corpus; the Brahmana texts treat it as the constituent pashu-element later embedded within agnishtoma, vajapeya, ashvamedha and the royal yajnas. Its performance is described as the prototype for all subsequent Vedic animal offerings.