salt, which is prayed over and kept in the house till the picking is finished.(341) (M97) Among the ancient Hindoos the first-fruits were sacrificed to the gods at the beginning of harvest, generally at the new or the full moon. There were two harvests in the year; the barley was reaped in spring and the rice in autumn. From the new grain, whether barley or rice, a sacrificial cake was prepared and set forth on twelve potsherds for the two great gods Indra and Agni; a pap or gruel of boiled grain, sodden either in water or milk, was offered to the Visve Devah, that is, to the common mob of deities; and a cake on one potsherd was presented to Heaven and Earth. The origin of these sacrifices of first-fruits was explained by the following myth. They say that the gods and their powerful rivals the Asuras once strove with each other for the mastery. In this strife the Asuras defiled, both by magic and by poison, the plants on which men and beasts subsist; for thus they hoped to get the better of the gods. Therefore neither man nor beast could eat food, and for lack of it they well nigh perished. When the gods heard of it, they said one to the other, “Come let us rid the plants of the defilement,” and they did so by means of the sacrifice. But they could not agree as to which of them should receive the sacrifices, so to decide this delicate question they ran a race, and Indra and Agni came in first; that is why the cake is offered to them on twelve potsherds, while the common mob of the gods have to put up with a simple pap or gruel. To this day, therefore, he who offers the first-fruits to the gods does it either because no one will then be able to defile the plants, neither by magic nor yet by poison; or perhaps he does it because the gods did so before him. Be that as it may, certain it is that he thereby renders both kinds of plants wholesome and innocuous, both the plants which men eat and the plants on which cattle graze; that indeed is the reason why the sacrificer sacrifices the first-fruits. And the priest’s fee for the sacrifice is the first-born calf of the season, which is, as it were, the first-fruit of the cattle.(342)