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TS is made up of
seven books or Kāņdās, each
Kāņda having five to eight
Prapāţhakās, each
Prapāţhaka having nine to forty six
anuvākās, a typical number being eleven to fourteen. The
total number of Prapāţhakās is 44.
Each anuvāka is either a collection of
mantra or a brāhmaņa passage.
By mantra, we mean either a ŗk mantra
following a specific metre or a yajus
mantra being a short rhythmic phrase. Mantra rises from the
innermost depths of the ŗşhīs and is
revealed to them in their superconscient
state. Hence the mantra embodies a deep chunk of knowledge or
wisdom. It is futile to argue as the ancient
mīmāmsakās do that a mantra has no meaning. A
brāhmaņa passage is a lengthy prose
passage of 50 to 100 lines without any punctuation. It gives
ritualistic explanation or anecdotes. For the semantic
connection between mantra and brāhmaņa,
see Sri Aurobindo's essay in the next
section 2. Note that Ashwalāyana
Gŗhya Sūtra,
an authority for the upholders of the rites, states in (3.3) that,
“the seers of the mantrās are
ŗşhīs, but the seers of the
Brāhmaņa are only
āchāryās'', i.e., persons who composed the
Brāhmaņās are not
ŗşhīs. So the brāhmaņa-passages
have much less authority than the mantrās.
Some
anuvākās are completely
brāhmaņa passages. There are
some anuvākās in which one part is
brāhmaņa and another having
mantrās. One can easily make out
whether a passage is brāhmaņa or
mantra.
Our focus in this
book is on the mantrās and their deep
spiritual/psychological interpretation. A common misunderstanding
is that the four Veda Samhitā books
are completely independent of one another. Nothing can be farther
from Truth. All of them have similar thought patterns, grammar and
usage.
Moreover there are a
large number of ŗk
mantrās in TS which are not in the
current Rig Veda text. All these ŗk
mantrās blend well in meaning with the
yajus mantrās
and the ŗk
mantrās from Rig Veda. Then there are several
ŗk mantrās
which are variants of the mantrās in
Rig Veda text; which version is original? These and other factors
indicate that all the mantrās of Veda
were part of a single collection, which was later divided into
four parts.
Is there a specific
overlap between the mantrās of RVS and
mantrās of TS? The answer is yes. We
compare only mantrās and exclude the
brāhmaņa passages which are not
mantrās. Roughly, the percentage may
be about 33 for the entire TS, i.e., out of 100 lines of
mantrās, roughly 33 are from RVS. For
details, see volume 1.
Overview of
Kāņdās
The
Kāņdās 1 and 4 are mainly
mantrās. One half of
Kāņda 7 has
mantrās and the other half, brāhmaņa.
All others are mainly brāhmaņa
with the last anuvāka of every
Prapāţhaka of every
Kāņda being compiled from the
mantrās mostly from Rig Veda
Samhitā. Kāņda
5 is a brāhmaņa on parts of
Kāņda 4. Kāņda
6 is a brāhmaņa on
Kāņda 1.
Kāņda
1 has four important inner yajňas
namely Darshapūrņamāsau (1.1),
Agnişhţoma (1.2-1.4),
Vājapeya (1.7) and
Rājasūya (1.8).
Rājasūya is the royal consecration. Even though one usually
regards it as an elaborate external rite of anointing the king
with water (abhişheka),
the person will obtain the full benefit only when he meditates and
invokes the divine powers. The water poured on the head will not
grant him anything.
Kāņda
4 is perhaps the most important one among the 7
Kāņdās. It contains the famous litany
Rudra, the
shatarudriya. Its glory is praised in many
Upanishads. The entire Kāņda 4 is an
excellent exposition of the principles and practice of the inner
yajňa or internal
yajňa for attaining overall spiritual progress.
Kāņdās
2 and 3 are mainly brāhmaņās. Half of
the Kāņda 7 contains mantra. The
second Prapāţhaka of
Kāņda 7 deals with the adoration of
the integers ranging from odd to even numbers, and ending in very
large numbers like ten raised to the
power of twelve. The other half of Kāņda
7 is brāhmaņa dealing with
various types of yajňas ranging in
duration from one day (ekaha)
to a year. Parts of Kāņda 5 and
Kāņda 7 deal with the
Ashvamedha yajňa.
One of the features
of TS is that some of the mantrās are
repeated in the same Kāņda or a
different one.
A natural question
is the meaning of the name brāhmaņa
for the prose passages. It means, “something
connected to brahma or mantra
such as rites or explanations of mantrās
or legends connected with mantra''.
brahma means mantra
everywhere. brahma
or brāhmaņa has nothing
to do with the so called caste of that name which is a much later
development. The introduction to Kāņda
2 in Volume 1 indicates the symbolism in the
brāhmaņa passages.
Taittirīya
Brāhmaņa and
Āraņyaka
Taittirīya
Brāhmaņa (TB) and
Taittirīya Āraņyaka (TA) are
continuations of TS. Like TS they are mixed up with
mantrās, with
Brāhmaņa passages dominating. TB has sections dealing
exclusively with mantrās. TB has 3
Kāņdās or
Aşhţakās. The complete Prapāţhaka
5 of Kāņda 3 deals only with
mantrās. Kāņda
2 of the TS offers brief explanation of some of these
mantrās in TB! TA has ten chapters (adhyāya)
of which the first chapter is a Brāhmaņa
dealing with the construction of the fire altar.
Chapters 3 and 4 deal exclusively with
mantrās. The famous hymn to
Puruşha,
puruşha sūkta, which
occurs in RV (10.90), SYV VS (31),
Atharva Veda (19.6) occurs in
the TA (3.12). TA version is slightly different and has more
mantrās than the Rig Veda version.
Chapter 6 deals with funeral rites. The chapters 7, 8 and 9 of TA
constitute the
Taittirīya
U.
The Chapter 10 is the
Mahānārāyaņa
U.
or
Yajňiki
U. |
