Other important S ́rauta rituals include the Ra ̄jasu ̄ya(“Consecration of the
King,” Weber 1893, Heesterman 1957), the As ́vamedha(“Horse Sacrifice,”
Dumont 1927, S. Bhawe 1939) which can only be performed by a great
king, and also the atypical Agnicayana(“Piling of the Fire Altar,” Staal 1983,
Kolhatkar 1986), a Soma ritual in which an additional raised fire altar of bricks
is used. (A film and video tapes of the 1975 performance in Kerala have been
used by Staal 1983.)
The Bra ̄ hman.a Texts
All aspects of the S ́rauta ritual have been discussed at length in the so-called
bra ̄hman.atexts. The oldest texts, in a stark expository style, are contained in the
YV Sam.hita ̄s of the Black Yajurveda. The linguistically younger ones are inde-
pendent texts, the Bra ̄hman.as proper, which are attached to each of the four
Vedas-Sam.hita ̄s (see the Appendix at the end of this chapter). The most import-
ant texts are the JB of southern and the S ́B of eastern North India, the early AB
of the eastern Panjab (its later sections, AB 6–8, come from the East), and the
still largely unused Va ̄dhB, which is situated between the JB and S ́B.
Differently from the power entailed in poetic composition (bráhman) and its
correct recitation, the Bra ̄hman.a style text stress correct knowledge (“he who
knows thus,” ya evam.veda) of the hidden meanings of the ritual and the corre-
lations (homologies) on which it is based (Witzel 1979, Wezler 1996). This so-
called “identification” technique correlatescertain items in the three spheres of
microcosm (humans, society), mesocosm (yajña, i.e. ritual), and macrocosm
(gods, universe, cf. Klaus 1986). This procedure led to a complex, amorphous
(and still not completely described) web of “hidden” cosmic and mundane
interrelations that was known only to the ritual specialists who used it to obtain
certain desired effects.
The universe thus is a rich and esoteric system of homologies. This “ritual
science” (Oldenberg 1919, Schayer 1925, Witzel 1979, B. K. Smith 1989,
Wezler 1996) is based on the strictly logicalapplication of the rule of cause and
effect, even though its initialpropositions (e.g. “the sun is gold”) are something
that we would not accept. The power of such esoteric Brahmanical knowledge
has led – a fact that is not always recognized – directly to the speculations found
in the Upanis.ads. The system was increasingly systematized by whole sets of par-
allel and interlinking correlations, so that by the time of the Upanis.ads, certain
truths about the world and the humans could be expressed by a simple summa-
tion such as “tat tvam asi” (Brereton 1986).
The Bra ̄hman.a style prose texts thus are the oldest explanations, in fact native
commentaries, of the literal meaning of the Mantras, of their ritual applications,
and of their often hidden secret import; futher, these texts discuss many of
the individual actions of the ritual. In addition, they deal with a large variety of
topics, from etymology to customs and beliefs; they also include many
vedas and upanis.ads 81