If it passed through them without being captured they became subordinate to the king who owned the horse.

Finally the horse was sacrificed at the Ashva-medha, the king paramount making the sacrifice, while the other kings performed subordinate parts at it.

[219] Similarly the Raja of Nagpur killed the sacrificial buffalo at the Dasahra festival.

But the common life of the people was sometimes conveyed from the domestic animal to the king by other methods than the performance of a sacrifice.

The king of Unyoro in Africa might never eat vegetable food but must subsist on milk and beef.