The sacrificial ritual recognizes two kinds of _srauta_ sacrifices, viz. _haviryajnas_ (meat-offerings), consisting of oblations (_ishti_) of milk, butter, cereals or flesh, and _somayagas_ or oblations of the juice of the soma plant. The setting up, by a householder, of a set of three sacrificial fires of his own constitutes the first ceremony of the former class, the _Agny-adhana_ (or (?) _Agny-adheya_). The first of the three fires laid down is the _garhapatya_, or householder's fire, so called because, though not taken from his ordinary house-fire, but as a rule specially produced by friction, it serves for cooking the sacrificial food, and thus, as it were, represents the domestic fire. From it the other two fires, the _anavaniya_, or offering fire, and the _dakshinagni_, or southern fire, used for certain special purposes, are taken. The principal other ceremonies of this class are the new and full moon offerings, the oblations made at the commencement of the three seasons, the offering of first-fruits, the animal sacrifice, and the _Agnihotra_, or daily morning and evening oblation of milk, which, however, is also included amongst the _grihya_, or domestic rites, as having to be performed daily on the domestic fire by the householder who keeps no regular set of sacrificial fires.
Of a far more complicated nature than these offerings are the Soma-sacrifices, which, besides the simpler ceremonies of this class, such as the _Agnishtoma_ or "Praise of Agni," also include great state functions, such as the _Räjasuya_ or consecration of a king, and the _Asvamedha_ or horse-sacrifice, which, in addition to the sacrificial rites, have a considerable amount of extraneous, often highly interesting, ceremonial connected with them, which makes them seem to partake largely of the nature of public festivals. Whilst the oblations of Soma-juice, made thrice on each offering-day, amidst chants and recitations, constitute the central rites of those services, their ritual also requires numerous single oblations of the _ishti_ kind, including at least three animal offerings, and in some cases the immolation of many hecatombs of victims. Moreover, a necessary preliminary to every Soma-sacrifice is the construction, in five layers, of a special fire-altar of large dimensions, consisting of thousands of bricks, formed and baked on the spot, to each, or each group, of which a special symbolic meaning is attached. The building of this altar is spread over a whole year, during which period the sacrificer has to carry about the sacrificial fire in an earthen pan for at least some time each day, until it is finally deposited on the completed altar to serve as the offering-fire for the Soma oblations. The altar itself is constructed in the form of a bird, because Soma was supposed to have been brought down from heaven by the metre Gayatri which had assumed the form of an eagle. Whilst the Soma-sacrifice has been thus developed by the Brahmanas in an extraordinary degree, its essential identity with the Avestan Haoma-cult shows that its origin goes back at all events to the Indo-Iranian period.