What Does the páñcaudana- ajá- represent in the Śaunakīya- and Paippalāda- Saṃhitās? A Tentative Reading through the Lens of Jaiminīya-Brāhmaṇa II, 53-54

The phrase páñcaudana- ajá- mentioned in ŚS IV 14 and IX 5 and PS III 38, VIII 19, XVI 97-100 denotes a billy-goat offered with five portions of mashed rice, in the context of a sacrifice aimed at gaining access to heaven. Nonetheless, several details, such as the syntagms jyótis tṛtīý a in ŚS IX 5.11 and PS XVI 97.8 or aparimita- yajña- in ŚS IX 5.22 and PS XVI 99.8, refer to a permanent deathless state, which surpasses the impermanence of the stay in heaven commonly obtained by means of a sacrifice performed with the help of an officiant priest. On the basis of a lexically grounded comparison with other Vedic sources, I postulate that this billy-goat might have originally represented the psychophysical self with its five sense organs, which has to merge the body entirely made of light, arisen from the sacrifices performed during one’s life and stored in heaven, until the death of the sacrificer. In particular, a later, definitely less poetic but more explicit and systematic version of this eschatological theory seems to be taught in JB II 53-54 by the controversial figure of Keśin Dārbhya. It is the doctrine of the so-called “non-decay of what is granted by sacrifices” (iṣṭapūrtá), in which the individual faculties, offered during the sacrifice instead of other oblations, can reach the relevant gods (and the relevant divine worlds) and finally be “redeemed”, so that the sacrificer is able to permanently enjoy merit in heaven.