Yajur Veda

   The Yajur Veda is the VEDA of the sacrificial formula, the YA J U S. The priest of the Yajur Veda, the ADHVARYU, is responsible for the major sacrificial duties at the Vedic ritual, including pouring oblations and kill-ing the sacrificial animals in the prescribed way. The formulas from the Yajur Veda must be uttered in proper fashion at the proper times.

   The Yajur Veda consists to a large extent of passages from the RIG VEDA rearranged for sacrifi-cial purposes. The Yajur Veda has two recensions: the White and the Black. The White Yajur Veda consists of hymns alone, numbering around 800. The Black Yajur Veda includes the exact same hymns, but it intersperses the explanatory. BRAH-MANA sections among the hymns. It is apparently this “muddied” or mixed aspect of the Veda that caused it to be named the Black Yajur Veda.

   Further reading: J. Gonda, Vedic Literature (Samhitas and Brahmanas): A History of Indian Literature, Vo l . 1, no. 1 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1975); R. T. Griffith, trans., The Hymns of the Yajurveda (Benares: Chowkhamba, 1957); Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Reli-gion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971); ———, trans., The Veda of the Black Yajus School, Entitled Taittiriya Sanhita (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914).