Its under-lying principles were so ridden with superstition and belief in the power of the priests to do and undo the cosmic order itself that critics have likened their formulas to the ravings of mental delirium. Religion becomes a mechanical ritual in which crowds of priests conduct vast and complicated ceremonies whose effects are believed to be felt in the farthermost heavens. In the Yajur-veda the sacrifice becomes so important that even the gods are compelled to do the will of the brahimns. Much of the sakha literature grew up out of variants of the Yajur-vedic texts. Strict observance of the ceremonial in every detail was insisted upon, and deviations led to the formation of new schools, there being over one hundred Yajur-vedic schools at the time of Patanjali (200 BC). It embodies the sacrificial formulas in their entirety, prescribes rules for the construction of altars, for the new and full-moon sacrifices, the rajasuya, the asvamedha, and the soma sacrifices. It is a priestly handbook, arranged in liturgical form for the performance of sacrifices (yaja), as its name implies. The Yajur-veda represents a transition between the spontaneous, free-worshipping period of the Rig-veda and the later brahmanical period when ritualism had become firmly established.
It is not so much the Indus and its tributaries any more, but the areas of the Satlej, Jamna and Ganges rivers. The Yajur-veda, like the Sama-veda samhita (collection), introduces a geographical milieu different from that of the Rig-veda. It also has prose passages of a later date. Yajurveda (700-300 BC) has been dealt with in a treatise called Hindu World where it is described as the second Veda, compiled mainly from Rig-vedic hymns, but showing considerable deviation from the original Rig-vedic text.
0 kommentar(er)
