The Texts of the White Yajurveda, translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith, presents one of the key Vedic scriptures, renowned for its focus on ritual and sacrifice. The White Yajurveda, also known as the Shukla Yajurveda, is primarily a manual for performing yajnas (sacrificial rituals), containing detailed instructions, mantras, and invocations essential for Vedic ceremonies. It emphasizes the harmony between ritual precision and spiritual intention, reflecting the early Vedic understanding of cosmic order (rta).
Griffith's translation makes this intricate text accessible, capturing its profound spiritual and practical dimensions. The mantras of the White Yajurveda address deities such as Agni, Indra, and Varuna while outlining rituals that bridge the material and divine realms. As a guide for ancient Vedic priests, it reveals the centrality of sacrifice in fostering spiritual connection and universal balance. Griffith's work is invaluable for those seeking to understand the roots of Hindu ritualistic traditions and philosophy.
Ralph T. H. Griffith was a renowned British Indologist and Sanskrit scholar. He is best known for translating the four Vedas-Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda-into English, making these foundational texts of Hinduism accessible to a global audience. His works remain influential in the study of Vedic literature and culture.
The Yajurveda-derived from the roots yaj, to sacrifice or worship, and vid, to know, is the Knowledge of Sacrifice or Sacrificial Texts and Formulas as distinguished from the Rgveda or Knowledge of Recited Praise, the Samaveda or Knowledge of Chanted Hymns, and the Atharva or Brahmaveda which is the Knowledge of Prayer, Charm, and Spells. Though ranking second in the Indian enumeration of the Vedas and containing much that is of very ancient origin, its compilation in its present form, exhibiting as it does the almost complete development of castes and mixt castes and considerable advance in arts and sciences, trades, handicrafts and occupations, is evidently of later date than that even of the Atharva. The Samhita or Collection of its hymns, texts, and formulas, constituting the hymn-book and prayer-book of the Adhvaryu priests as distinguished from the Hotar, the Udgätar, and the Brahman, the special priests, respectively, of the three other Vedas, owes its origin to the increasing multiformity and complication of the Indian ritual and the recognized insufficiency of the simple and unsystematically arranged Collection of Rgveda Hymns to meet the requirements of the performers of various essentially important rites and ceremonies.
The Yajurveda, owing to a schism among its earliest teachers and their followers, was divided into two distinct Samhitas or Collections called-probably from the names of the Rishis or inspired Seers who are respectively their reputed compilers the Taittiriya and the Vajasaneya or Vajasaneyi; the former and older being known also by the title Krishna or Black-probably from its dark or obscure appearance, the collection of sacrificial texts and formulas being perplexingly intermingled with the Brahmaņa or exegetical portion which explains them and teaches their ritual application, and the latter being called Şukla or White, the revised, systematic and clear collec-tion, containing the texts and formulas by themselves with a totally distinct Brahmaņa, the Satapatha, as an appendix. In the two divisions, besides these essential points of difference, are found occasional verbal and orthoepic variations which are generally of little importance. The order of rites and ceremonies is substantially identical, but the White contains a few more texts than the Black.
The Samhita of the White Yajurveda consists of forty Adhyayas or Books containing, with frequent repetitions of the same text, about two thousand verses. A large portion of these are Richas or Strophes. borrowed-frequently with variations-from the Rgveda, and some-times from the Atharva: these, of course, are metrical. Nearly equal in quantity are the Yajus texts or sacrificial formulas-the most. characteristic portion, from which the Veda derives its name-com-posed in measured prose 'which rises now and then,' as Weber-observes, 'to a true rhythmical swing,' and long passages, such as the lists of victims to be tied up and dedicated at the Aşvamedha and the Purushamedha, which are necessarily in the simplest prose.
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