Sarga-11
Appointing a New Priest: 1.11.13

Bodhayana says, “whoever is to conduct the sacrifice recommended by the seniormost priest must be selected provided, of course, he has the desirable lineage, education, humanity, conduct and character.

Trisanku episode:

A positive example is Dasaratha and the negative is Trisanku of his own race. Trisanku’s desire to perform a sacrifice to attain heavenly abode with the body intact was spurned by Vasishta. So he approached the preceptor’s sons who related the whole episode. “For all the Ikshvakus, the family priest is the supreme preceptor. He always speaks the truth and his advice must not be ignored. When Vasishta has said that it is impossible to go to heaven with the mortal body, how can we conduct a sacrifice for you? O great man, do not be childish. Go back to your city”. Although dissuaded thus, he disregarded their advice and approached Viswamitra of a lower caste practising rigorous penance and capable of redefining the limits of worldly decorum. He said to the king, “Behold the power of my penance, O king, which I acquired on my own. With that power I shall take you alive to heaven”.

Samvarta-Marutta episode:

The Samvartta-Marutta episode in the Mahabharata reiterates this. Marutta said to Brihaspati, “Revered sir, penance is your wealth. Depending upon your promise that you gave me earlier, I have planned a sacrifice for which I have also made all the preparations. You should be the priest. So please come and do the needful”. To this, Brihaspati replied, “I do not wish to be your priest, O king. I have already been invited by Indra”. Marutta said, “You have been our family priest from your father Angirasa’s time and I have come to take you. Please, concede to my request. Brihaspati said, “Having worked as a priest for the gods I shall not be a priest for a mortal”. His request was turned down. Marutta told Narada that he had no desire to live any longer and Marutta was not at fault. His guru had refused to perform his sacrifice and had permitted him to choose anyone else for the purpose. There would not be any breach of propriety on Marutta’s part if he had chosen another priest. Still he found death preferable. Narada said to him “O king, another son of Angirasa, Samvarta by name is devoted to piety and keeps wandering in all the quarters unclad. You may approach him. With a hope to get the son of his family preceptor as a priest, Marutta was happy. Marutta got Samvarta to perform the sacrifice. Hearing the news that the mortal’s sacrifice convened by Samvarta was being performed with great grandeur Brihaspati, now was tempted to act as a priest out of greed, forgetting his pledge that he would not perform a sacrifice for anyone other than the gods. Marutta, however, declined. He said “betrayal of a friend is a sin for which there is no atonement. It is a sin equal to killing a brahmin”. Angered at the rejection, Brihaspati, who forbids even gods from taking the wrong path, impelled Indra to kill king Marutta and Samvarta, an ideal brahmin, an ascetic leading a life of renunciation, a sage engaged in sacrificial proceedings. As Indra raised his hand with the thunderbolt to kill Marutta, Samvarta paralysed him. Then Marutta invoked Indra and other gods to partake their respective portion of the offerings “Then lustrous Samvarta invoked gods in groups, offering oblations in the fire, reciting aloud the mantras with full conviction”.
This episode suggests that a priest must not forsake a flawless host. Rather than inviting a substitute for the family priest as Trisanku did, Marutta chose the priest who belonged to the family of his previous preceptor. As a result of this dignified gesture he had to his credit a sacrifice, superior in every respect due to the wealth that he had procured by his extraordinary devotion to gods including Indra, his own rival. If either of them has erred, abdication is inevitable. Manu says, “If a host dismisses a priest in a sacrifice or a priest forsakes his host when both are capable and faultless in the performance of their respective duties the offender must be fined by hundred mudras.
In Ayodhyakanda too there is a verse saying, “He who abandons a person having no fault and devoted to a righteous path, commits a breach of dharma which may burn even Indra’s splendour”. Gautama also concurs this, “Those who do not dismiss a sinner repeatedly committing offences and those who dismiss the sinless are both (morally) fallen”.