SHRAUTA S?TRAS

SHRAUTA S?TRAS Around 700 to 300 b.c., many schools or branches (sh?kh?) transmitting oral traditions known as Vedas developed brief ritual manuals called Shrauta S?tras. Of the Sa?hit?s (anthologies) of the four Vedas, the Yajur Veda in its two main divisions, Krish?a (Black) and Shukla (White), generated more than half of the extant Shrauta S?tras. Such manuals were needed as concise guidelines for the four major priests, adhvaryu, hot?, udg?t?, and brahman, each with three assistants, for increasingly elaborate and sophisticated sacrifices that had been detailed in the Sa?hit?s and their respective Br?hma?a texts.

For example, the Taittir?ya Sa?hit? of the Krish?a Yajur Veda is matched by the Taittir?ya Br?hma?a and the later Taittir?ya ?ra?yaka and Taittir?ya Upanishad. At least nine different Vedic schools preserved the enormous aggregate of Taittir?ya texts as an oral tradition, recited by Vedic students who then taught the whole corpus to the next generation of sons and grandsons. For sacrifices known as shrauta (from shruti, "that which is heard," meaning the Veda) the bulky Sa?hit? and Br?hma?a texts were mined to create versatile ritual manuals. Each of the nine schools of the Taittir?ya produced its own Shrauta S?tra in order to systematize the ritual tradition according to its own lights. Therefore, when the Vedic student learns the Shrauta S?tra of his sh?kh? (for example, the ?pastamba), he is memorizing material on rituals already covered, perhaps years before, in the Taittir?ya Sa?hit?, Br?hma?a, and ?ra?yaka.

Similarly, various branches of the other Sa?hit?s generated Shrauta S?tras. The names of those extant, listed according to Sa?hit?, are:

Rig Veda: ?shval?yana, Sh??kh?yana

Krishna (Black) Yajur Veda: Baudh?yana, V?dh?la, Bh?radv?ja, ?pastamba, Hira?yakeshin, Vaikh?nasa, K??haka, M?nava, V?r?ha

Shukla (White) Yajur Veda, also known as V?jasaneyi Sa?hit?: K?ty?yana

S?ma Veda: L??y?yana, Dr?hy?ya?a, Jaimin?ya

Atharva Veda: Vait?na

Although arrangements of rules for shrauta sacrifices may vary, the contents of the S?tras are similar from school to school. For a typical example, the ?shval?yana Shrauta S?tra, a guide for the hot? priest and his three assistants, all connected to the Rig Veda, begins with ish?i (offerings) on new- and full-moon days and proceeds with the establishment of the fires, the twice-daily milk offering (agnihotra), offerings to ancestors, first-fruits offerings and other seasonal sacrifices, animal sacrifice, expiatory offerings, soma sacrifice (agnish?oma), and a lengthy discussion of sacrifices cataloged according to the number of suty? (soma-pressing days) contained in each. The K?ty?yana Shrauta S?tra, on the other hand, begins with general remarks on shrauta rituals before it outlines almost the same list of routine sacrifices with variant order and emphasis, but attention to such sacrifices as pravargya (a special rite in a soma sacrifice, an offering of milk poured into boiling ghee) and purushamedha (human sacrifice).

The style of Sanskrit is the aphoristic s?tra (thread) genre, condensed and formulaic. Gradually, one or more commentaries (bh?shya) were attached during transmission of the S?tras to explain their contents for changing circumstances. Also assembled were indispensable digests (paddhati, prayoga), often confined to a single type or example of a special ritual. The Vedic schools named here also produced Grihya S?tras for domestic rituals, including the schedule of life-cycle rites known as sa?sk?ra and household offerings to deities, planets, and the deceased.

David M. Knipe

See alsoHinduism (Dharma) ; Soma ; Vedic Aryan India ; Yajña ; Yajur Veda

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gonda, Jan. The Ritual S?tras. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1977. Situates the S?tras in the full compass of Vedic texts.

Kane, P. V. History of Dharma??stra, vol. II, part II. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1941. As with Gonda's book, Kane masterfully surveys the ritual S?tra context.

Smith, Brian K. Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Valuable discussion of links between Shrauta and domestic ritual systems.

Staal, Frits. Agni. The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar. 2 vols. Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities, 1983. S?tras discussed in context of the Agnicayana.