[209] The brahmin high priest (purohita) was possessed of four factors: he was well born on both his mother's and his father's side, of pure conception back to the seventh generation of paternal forebears, unimpeached and irreproachable with respect to birth; he was a reciter and bearer of the mantras, one who had mastered the three Vedas together with the vocabularies (nighaṇḍu) and the ritual manuals (ketubha), together with the phonology and analysis of words, with the histories (itihāsa) as the fifth—skilled in the word-by-word text, a grammarian, fully versed in cosmology (lokāyata) and the marks of a great man; he was virtuous, of mature virtue, endowed with mature virtue; he was wise, competent, and intelligent, being the first or second of those who hold up the offering. The brahmin high priest was possessed of these four factors. Thus these four factors too became accessories of that very sacrifice.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.