The Veda of Sacrificial Formulas

The Yajur Veda is the priests' working handbook for the sacrifice: a collection of yajus, the muttered formulas and directions recited by the adhvaryu, the priest who performed the physical acts of the ritual, measuring the ground, building the altar, handling the offerings, while speaking the words that accompanied each act.

Unlike the Rig Veda's metrical hymns, much of the Yajur Veda is in prose, and it is closely bound to the mechanics of the rite. It survives in two great streams: the White (Shukla) or Vajasaneyi recension, which keeps the sacrificial formulas separate from their explanatory commentary, and the Black (Krishna) recension, which mingles the formulas with prose passages interpreting them, an arrangement the tradition itself described as the difference between "clear" and "unarranged." Because it is the manual of ritual action, the Yajur Veda is the central text of Vedic sacrificial practice, and its associated Brahmanas and the great Shatapatha Brahmana elaborate the meaning of the rites at length. Like the other Vedas it is shruti.