That this is the right view is confirmed by similar injunctions given at the end of the fifth Aranyaka. Here we have first some rules as to who is qualified to recite the Mahavrata. No one is permitted to do so, who has not passed through the Diksha, the initiation for the Agnishtoma. If the Mahavrata is performed as a Sattra, the sacrificer is a Hotri priest, and he naturally has passed through that ceremony. But if the Mahavrata is performed as an Ekaha or Ahina ceremony, anybody might be the sacrificer, and therefore it was necessary to say that no one who is adikshita, uninitiated, should recite it for another person; nor should he do so, when the Mahavrata is performed without (or with) an altar, or if it does not last one year. In saying, however, that one should not recite the Mahavrata for another person, parents and teachers are not to be understood as included, because what is done for them, is done for ourselves.

After these restrictions as to the recitation of the Mahavrata, follow other restrictions as to the teaching of it, and here we read, as at the end of the Upanishad:

4. 'Let no one teach this day, the Mahavrata, to one who is not a regular pupil (antevasin), and has been so for one year, certainly not to one who has not been so for one year; nor to one who is not a brahmakarin and does not study the same Veda [*1b], certainly not to one who does not study the same Veda; nor to one who does not come to him.

5. 'Let the teaching not be more than saying it once or twice, twice only.

6. 'One man should tell it to one man, so says Gatukarnya.

7. 'Not to a child, nor to a man in his third stage of life.

8. 'The teacher and pupil should not stand, nor walk, nor lie down, nor sit on a couch; but they should both sit on the ground.

9. 'The pupil should not lean backward while learning, nor lean forward. He should not be covered with too much clothing, nor assume the postures of a devotee, but without using any of the apparel of a devotee, simply elevate his knees. Nor should he learn, when he has eaten flesh, when he has seen blood, or a corpse, or when he has done an unlawful thing [*2b]; when he has anointed his eyes, oiled or rubbed his body, when he has been shaved or bathed, put colour on, or ornamented himself with flower-wreaths, when he has been writing or effacing his writing [*3b].

10. 'Nor should he finish the reading in one day, so says Gatukarnya, while according to Galava, he should finish it in one day. Agnivesyayana holds that he should finish all before the Trikasitis [*4b]^266:4b See Ait. Ar. I, 4, 3, 1-4.

^266:2a Apastamba-sutras, translated by Buhler, p. 18.

^266:1b See Gautama-sutras XIV, 21, and Buhler's note.

^266:2b Navratyam akramya is explained by the commentator by ukkhishtadyakramana.