Vedic influence in West Asia (Sunassepa's human sacrifice)

There is a story in which king Harischandra has no progeny. He prays to Varuna and with Varuna’s blessing obtains a son. Varuna imposes a condition according to which the king has to sacrifice his son to Varuna. The king keeps postponing the fulfillment of his promise. In due time the king’s son Rohita grows in to a youth. The king finally informs Rohita about the sacrifice and asks for Rohita’s consent. Rohita refuses and runs away to the forest. As a result of this and Varuna’s curse, the king gets a bloated belly. When Rohita hears about the king’s condition he starts out to fulfill his promise but every time he is dissuaded by Indra. The sixth time, Rohita meets a Brahman Rishi Ajagarta. Rohita buys the rishi’s middle son Sunassepa to be sacrificed to Varuna in his place. The rishi & his wife refuse to sell him their eldest and their youngest who are called as Sunapunkha and Suna-Langhula. The sacrifice is started and Vishwamitra is the hotra, the officiating priest. Sunassepa’s father himself agrees to tie him to the sacrificial post in three places. During the rites, Sunassepa successfully invokes the dawn Goddess Usha and gets liberated from the sacrificial post. As soon as he is liberated, he invents the method of pressing the soma juice from the soma creeper which is offered to Varuna instead of Sunassepa himself.

This story is definitely a riddle and does not indicate human sacrifice. The solution to this riddle will give us knowledge of Brahman. King Harischandra represents the moon which in turn is an esoteric representation of man. The king’s son Rohita represents self which is created to be sacrificed  to the Supreme Self. The self runs away and the man as a result of samsaric attachments gets the big belly from his selfish desires. The self then takes pity and buys the soma creeper which is Sunassepa. The meaning of the word Sunasseppa is dog’s tail (dog represents moon). He represents knowledge. His parents represent Brahma and his wife Vak.  Their other sons are also named as dog’s tail Sunapunkha and Suna-Langhula indicating that they have enough knowledge for each other as well as enough to spare. Sunasseppa tied to the post in three places could represent tapa-traya. Tapa-traya are,  the pain cause by one's own mind , the pain caused by fate or gods, and the pain caused by animals, other people, etc. The dawn goddess Usha successfully liberating Sunassepa from the sacrificial post represent that, by knowing Brahman (God) through Brahmic knowledge, Brahman relieves us from the tApa-trayas. Sunassepa pressing the soma juice from the soma creeper and offering it in to the sacrificial fire represents Sunassepa’s self-sacrifice to Brahman, i.e Sunassepa realizes that he is the atma and he belongs to Brahman. We have seen that Sunassepa’s name means dog’s tail and that the dog represents the moon;  the moon as seen earlier is used to depict man hence, the dog’s tail is the atma inside the man’s body. The atma rightfully belongs to Brahman and therefore must be sacrificed to Brahman. Sacrificing atma to Brahman means realizing God. The dog’s tail means the soma creeper which is Sunassepa. By this self-sacrifice, Sunassepa is saved from this ocean of samsara.