The Texts of the White Yajurveda or Vajasaneya-Samhita

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The four Vedas, Rg, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, the foundations, on which the grand and most ancient edifice of Hindu religion and philosophy are built. The Yajurveda ranks second in importance and is divided into two collections, Taittiriya and Vajasaneya, better known as Krishna or Black and Shukla or White Yajurveda. The latter is called white because its arrangement is systematic, orderly and free of obscurities which bedevil the former. The Yajurveda is actually a handbook or manual for the Adhvaryu priests, who specialized in conducting sacrifices. The White Yajurveda contains 2000 hymns arranged in forty books. Most of the hymns are culled from the Rgveda. The Yajur or sacrificial formulas are in prose, to be intoned in measured cadence. The important sacrifices dealt here are: Asvamedha or horse sacrifice, Purushamedha or sacrifice at full and new moon. Griffith’s translation is true to the original. It explains recondite portions with the unobtrusive commentary of Mahidara.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ralph T.H. Griffith

Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith born May 25, 1826: son of Rev. R.C. Griffith: educated at Warminster, Uppingham and Queen's College, Oxford: University Boden Sanskrit Scholar: Assistant Master, -Marlborough, 1849-53: Professor of English literature, Benares College, 1854-62: Principal of Benares College, 1863-78: Director of Public Instruction, N.W.P. and Oudh, 1878-85: retired 1885: author of Specimens of Old Indian Poetry, 1852; The Birth of the War-God, 1853; Idylls from the Sanskrit, 1866; Scenes from the Ramayana, 1868; The Ramayana of Valmiki, 1870-75; The Hymns of the Rigveda, 1889-92; The Hymns of the Atharvaveda, 1895-96; The Texts of the White Yajurveda, 1899: founder and editor of the Pandit, a Sanskrit journal, for eight years: C.I.E., 1885. Died 1906