From the Hindu Yagñá to the Hebrew Altar, Sacrifice is the central religious act.
The English word ‘God’, the scholars say, derives from the German Gott, from the Proto-Indo-European Gutom, itself sourced in the Sanskrit Huta; ‘to pour’ [as in libation to the fire-altar] and its related word Hotr [the reciter of the ritual-invocation].
Both words derive from Hu: ‘Of the Sacrifice’ [from sacer; ‘to make sacred’] as used in the verses of the Rig Veda.
[Yajna today stands domesticated as the Puja and ‘Immortality’ has been toned down to requests for an employable son-in-law. But that is another story.]
It’s not a good idea to be a goat on the Islamic Eid. Nor a buffalo at a Bengali Durga Pūjā. Nor a turkey at American Thanksgiving.
But you cannot sacrifice by proxy. That is cheating. You have to make your own.
Self-Denial is the first order of Moral Code. All Virtue aligns with it. All Vanity scoffs at it. All religions offer their denouement at the limit of self-denial, in the perfection of self-mortification. They vary only in the details.
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