Śruti / The four Vedas / Yajurveda · 6 of 10

6. White and black

Yajurveda (यजुर्वेद)

The Yajurveda (यजुर्वेद) is the Veda of the formulas spoken while the rite is done. A ṛgvedic hymn can stand as praise. A yajus is timed to an act: this formula as the offering is poured, this formula as the fire is carried. The spiritualization of action begins here, because the act is never only the act. The prose around it says what the act is.

The white recension, śukla (शुक्ल), is the Vājasaneyi (वाजसनेयि). Mantra and explanation are separated. The mantras are the saṃhitā. The great brāhmaṇa is the Śatapatha (शतपथ), the brāhmaṇa of a hundred paths. Two śākhās are the ones a reader meets: Mādhyandina (माध्यन्दिन) and Kāṇva (काण्व). They keep the same rite and they do not always number it the same way. The verse shelf of the Īśā follows the Kāṇva order of chapter 40.

The black recension, kṛṣṇa (कृष्ण), mixes mantra and explanation in one stream. The branches a reader meets by name are the Taittirīya (तैत्तिरीय), the Maitrāyaṇī (मैत्रायणी), and the Kāṭhaka (काठक). A fourth, the Kapiṣṭhala-Kaṭha (कपिष्ठल-कठ), is often named beside them. Black means the mixture, not a judgment of the book.

Read in the four layers, the Yajurveda shows the path of action as the tradition itself deepened it. The brāhmaṇa ties a cup, a chant, a pace, to the world and to the person. The āraṇyaka takes the fire inward for the one who has left the village fire. The upaniṣad asks what the rite was about, and answers with the self. The Kaṭha, the Taittirīya, and the Śvetāśvatara grow on the black side. The Īśā and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka grow on the white side. Those books are sat as narratives in the twelve.

This sitting is not a ritual manual. It does not list implements, counts, or the order of a sacrifice. The point it keeps is the one the later question depends on: an action, fully attended to, was already being read as a picture of the person and the world.

नेपालीमा

यजुर्वेद कर्म गर्दा बोलिने सूत्रको वेद हो। शुक्ल भनेको वाजसनेयि हो। मन्त्र र व्याख्या छुट्टाछुट्टै छन्। शतपथ त्यसको ब्राह्मण हो। शाखा माध्यन्दिन र काण्व हुन्। ईशाको पद काण्व क्रममा समावेश गरिएको छ।

कृष्णमा मन्त्र र व्याख्या मिसिएका छन्। तैत्तिरीय, मैत्रायणी र काठक मुख्य नाम हुन्। कपिष्ठल-कठ पनि भनिन्छ। ब्राह्मणले कर्मलाई संसार र मान्छेसँग बाँध्छ। आरण्यकले आगो भित्र सार्छ। उपनिषद्ले सोध्छ, यज्ञ केका लागि थियो? यो पृष्ठ कर्मको विधि होइन।

Where it sits

Śrī Rudram, the long homage to Rudra inside this Veda, is the next sitting. The Īśā narrative is the first of the twelve.