BRĀHMAṆA, the Sanskrit term applied to a body of prose writings appended to the collections (samhitā) of Vedic texts, the meaning and ritual application of which they are intended to elucidate, and like them regarded as divinely revealed. From a linguistic point of view, these treatises with their appendages, the more mystic and recondite Āraṇyakas and the speculative Upanishads, have to be considered as forming the connecting link between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit. The exact derivation and meaning of the name is somewhat uncertain. Whilst the masculine term brāhmaṇa (nom. brāhmaṇas), the ordinary Sanskrit designation of a man of the Brahmanical caste, is clearly a derivative of brahman (nom. brahmā), a common Vedic term for a priest (see [Brahman]), thus meaning the son or descendant of a Brahman, the neuter word brāhmaṇa (nom. brāhmaṇam) on the other hand, with which we are here concerned, admits of two derivations: either it is derived from the same word brahman, and would then seem to mean a dictum or observation ascribed to, or intended for the use of, a Brahman, or superintendent priest; or it has rather to be referred to the neuter noun brahmān (nom. brahmă), in the sense of “sacred utterance or rite,” in which case it might mean a comment on a sacred text, or explanation of a devotional rite, calculated to bring out its spiritual or mystic significance and its bearing on the Brahma, the world-spirit embodied in the sacred writ and ritual. This latter definition seems on the whole the more probable one, and it certainly would fit exactly the character of the writings to which the term relates. It will thus be seen that the term brāhmaṇam applies not only to complete treatises of an exegetic nature, but also to single comments on particular texts or rites of which such a work would be made up.
The gradual elaboration of the sacrificial ceremonial, as the all-sufficient expression of religious devotion, and a constantly growing tendency towards theosophic and mystic speculation on the significance of every detail of the ritual, could not fail to create a demand for explanatory treatises of this kind, which, to enhance their practical utility, would naturally deal with the special texts and rites assigned in the ceremonial to the several classes of officiating priests. At a subsequent period the demand for instruction in the sacrificial science called into existence a still more practical set of manuals, the so-called Kalpa-sūtras, or ceremonial rules, detailing, in succinct aphorisms, the approved course of sacrificial procedure, without reference to the supposed origin or import of the several rites. These manuals are also called Śrauta-sūtras, treating as they do, like the Brāhmaṇas, of the Śrauta rites—i.e. the rites based on the śruti or revelation—requiring at least three sacrificial fires and a number of priests, as distinguished from the gṛihya (domestic) or smārta (traditional) rites, supposed to be based on the smriti or tradition, which are performed on the house-fire and dealt with in the Gṛihya-sūtras.
The ritual recognizes four principal priests (ṛitvij), each of whom is assisted by three subordinates: viz. the Brahman or superintending priest; the Hotṛi or reciter of hymns and verses; the Udgātri or chanter; and the Adhvaryu or offerer, who looks after the details of the ceremonial, including the preparation of the offering-ground, the construction of fire-places and altars, the making of oblations and muttering of the prescribed formulae. Whilst the two last priests have assigned to them special liturgical collections of the texts to be used by them, the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā and Yajurveda-saṃhitā respectively, the Hotṛi has to deal entirely with hymns and verses taken from the Ṛigveda-saṃhitā, of which they would, however, form only a comparatively small portion. As regards the Brahman, he would doubtless be chosen from one of those other three classes, but would be expected to have made himself thoroughly conversant with the texts and ritual details appertaining to all the officiating priests. It is, then, to one or other of those three collections of sacred texts and the respective class of priests, that the existing Brāhmaṇas attach themselves. At a later period, when the Atharvan gained admission to the Vedic canon, a special connexion with the Brahman priest was sometimes claimed, though with scant success, for this fourth collection of hymns and spells, and the comparatively late and unimportant Gopatha-brāhmaṇa attached to it.
The Udgātṛi’s duties being mainly confined to the chanting of hymns made up of detached groups of verses of the Ṛigveda, as collected in the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā, the more important Brāhmaṇas of this sacerdotal class deal chiefly with the various modes of chanting, and the modifications which the verses have to undergo in their musical setting. Moreover, the performance of chants being almost entirely confined to the Soma-sacrifice, it is only a portion, though no doubt the most important portion, of the sacrificial ceremonial that enters into the subject matter of the Sāmaveda Brāhmaṃas.
As regards the Brāhmaṇas of the Ṛigveda, two of such works have been handed down, the Aitareya and the Kaushītaki (or Śānkhāyana)-Brāhmaṇas, which have a large amount of their material in common. But while the former work (transl. into English by M. Haug) is mainly taken up with the Soma-sacrifice, the latter has in addition thereto chapters on the other forms of sacrifice. Being intended for the Hotṛi’s use, both these works treat exclusively of the hymns and verses recited by that priest and his assistants, either in the form of connected litanies or in detached verses invoking the deities to whom oblations are made, or uttered in response to the solemn hymns chanted by the Udgātṛis.
It is, however, to the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras of the Yajurveda, dealing with the ritual of the real offering-priest, the Adhvaryu, that we have to turn for a connected view of the sacrificial procedure in all its material details. Now, in considering the body of writings connected with this Veda, we are at once confronted by the fact that there are two different schools, an older and a younger one, in which the traditional body of ritualistic matter has been treated in a very different way. For while the younger school, the Vājasaneyins, have made a clear severance between the sacred texts or mantras and the exegetic discussions thereon—as collected in the Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā and the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa (trans. by J. Eggeling, in Sacred Books of the East) respectively—arranged systematically in accordance with the ritual divisions, the older school on the other hand present their materials in a hopelessly jumbled form; for not only is each type of sacrifice not dealt with continuously and in orderly fashion, but short textual sections of mantras are constantly followed immediately by their dogmatic exegesis; the term brāhmaṇa thus applying in their case only to these detached comments and not to the connected series of them. Thus the most prominent subdivision of the older school, the Taittirīyas, in their Saṃhitā, have treated the main portion of the ceremonial in this promiscuous fashion, and to add to the confusion they have, by way of supplement, put forth a so-called Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa, which, so far from being a real Brāhmaṇa, merely deals with some additional rites in the same confused mixture of sacrificial formulae and dogmatic explanations. It is not without reason, therefore, that those two schools, the older and the younger, are commonly called the Black (kṛishṇa) and the White (sukla) Yajus respectively.
Although the ritualistic discussions of the Brāhmaṇas are for the most part of a dry and uninteresting nature to an even greater degree than is often the case with exegetic theological treatises, these works are nevertheless of considerable importance both as regards the history of Indian institutions and as “the oldest body of Indo-European prose, of a generally free, vigorous, simple form, affording valuable glimpses backwards at the primitive condition of unfettered Indo-European talk” (Whitney). Of especial interest in this respect are the numerous myths and legends scattered through these works. From the archaic style in which these mythological tales are usually composed, as well as from the fact that not a few of them are found in Brāhmaṇas of different schools and Vedas, though often with considerable variations, it seems pretty evident that the groundwork of them must go back to times preceding the composition or final redaction of the existing Brāhmaṇas. In the case of some of these legends—as those of Śunaḥ-Śepha, and the fetching of Soma from heaven—we can even see how they have grown out of germs contained in some of the Vedic hymns. If the literary style in which the exegetic discussion of the texts and rites is carried on in the Brāhmaṇas is, as a rule, of a very bald and uninviting nature, it must be borne in mind that these treatises are of a strictly professional and esoteric character, and in no way lay claim to being considered as literary compositions in any sense of the word. And yet, notwithstanding the general emptiness of their ritualistic discussions and mystic speculations, “there are passages in the Brāhmaṇas full of genuine thought and feeling, and most valuable as pictures of life, and as records of early struggles, which have left no trace in the literature of other nations” (M. Müller).
The chief interest, however, attaching to the Brāhmaṇas is doubtless their detailed description of the sacrificial system as practised in the later Vedic ages; and the information afforded by them in this respect should be all the more welcome to us, as the history of religious institutions knows of no other sacrificial ceremonial with the details of which we are acquainted to anything like the same extent. An even more complete and minutely detailed view of the sacrificial system is no doubt obtained from the ceremonial manuals, the Kalpa-sūtras; but it is just by the speculative discussions of the Brāhmaṇas—the mystic significance and symbolical colouring with which they invest single rites—that we gain a real insight into the nature and gradual development of this truly stupendous system of ritual worship.
The sacrificial ritual recognizes two kinds of śrauta sacrifices, viz. haviryajnas (meat-offerings), consisting of oblations (ishti) of milk, butter, cereals or flesh, and somayāgas or oblations of the juice of the soma plant. The setting up, by a householder, of a set of three sacrificial fires of his own constitutes the first ceremony of the former class, the Agny-ādhāna (or (?) Agny-ādheya). The first of the three fires laid down is the gārhapatya, or householder’s fire, so called because, though not taken from his ordinary house-fire, but as a rule specially produced by friction, it serves for cooking the sacrificial food, and thus, as it were, represents the domestic fire. From it the other two fires, the ānavanīya, or offering fire, and the dakshiṇāgni, or southern fire, used for certain special purposes, are taken. The principal other ceremonies of this class are the new and full moon offerings, the oblations made at the commencement of the three seasons, the offering of first-fruits, the animal sacrifice, and the Agnihotra, or daily morning and evening oblation of milk, which, however, is also included amongst the gṛihya, or domestic rites, as having to be performed daily on the domestic fire by the householder who keeps no regular set of sacrificial fires.