Doubts on Yajur Veda.

[Guest guest]

sri:

Dear Bhaktas,

 

I had come across and article which mentioned that there are "two types"

of Yajur Veda, namely, Krishna Yajur Veda and Shukla Yajur Veda. My

doubts are :

 

(1) First of all why do the "two types" of Yajur Veda exsits? What are

the origins of both?

 

(2) I had also read that the Shukla Yajur Veda is authored by

Yagnyavalkiya. Who exactly is Yagnyavalkiya? And how can the Shukla

Yajur Veda be authored when the vedas are said to be "apowrushEyam" (

un-authored)?

 

adiyEn,

 

Malolan Cadambi

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Malolan,

This same question when adiyEn posted about a year back,

Sri Satakopan replied elaborately about the origin of the two

Sakais and about YagnavAlkyar. Unfortunately I don't recollect

which month... But probably you can use Sri Mani's archival search

and find out Sri Satakopan's posting.

As I understood, Yagnavalkyar had a conflict with his guru

when the former, out of acharya bhakti declared that he alone can

absolve his acharya of a curse that fell on latter. Upon

hearing this declaration his Guru misunderstood it for arrogance

and asked him to quit as his disciple, upon which Yagnavalkyar

determined to part and "vomitted" out all that he had learnt from

his Guru. What was "vomitted" out was Krishna Yajur Veda which was

later absorbed by the Guru's other disciples as tiththiri birds.

Later Yagnavalkyar prayed to Surya and absorbed the knowledge of

Shukla Yajur Veda which even his Guru didn't know. So the crux

is that Yagnavalkyar never authored the Shukla Sakai but he compiled

it. For more details please search for Sri Satakopan's posting.

 

adiyEn,

chandrasekaran.

 

 

bhakti-list , Malolan Cadambi <mcadambi> wrote:

> sri:

> Dear Bhaktas,

>

> I had come across and article which mentioned that there are "two

types"

> of Yajur Veda, namely, Krishna Yajur Veda and Shukla Yajur Veda. My

> doubts are :

>

> (1) First of all why do the "two types" of Yajur Veda exsits? What

are

> the origins of both?

>

> (2) I had also read that the Shukla Yajur Veda is authored by

> Yagnyavalkiya. Who exactly is Yagnyavalkiya? And how can the Shukla

> Yajur Veda be authored when the vedas are said to be "apowrushEyam"

(

> un-authored)?

>

> adiyEn,

>

> Malolan Cadambi

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

In addition to Sri Chandrasekharan's excellent synopsis of

the mythology behind the two yajur vedas, we can also

surmise the reasoning behind the names 'Sukla' or white

and 'kRshNa' or dark. The 'Sukla' yajur veda samhita,

also known as the vAjasaneyaka samhita, is composed purely of

verses. In other words, it is purely metrical.

 

The kRshNa yajur veda or taittirIya samhita, on the other hand,

has prose and poetry intermixed. For this reason, it is also

significantly longer.

 

Since the vAjasaneyaka samhita is purely metrical, it is

inferred that this is why it is called 'white', and the

'mixed' taittirIya is considered 'black'. Another reason

adduced is that the vAjasaneyaka samhita was received

by the rishi yAjnavalkya through the grace of the sun

god, so it is 'bright' or 'Sukla'.

>From the story Chandrasekharan mentioned, we also learn

that the Sukla yajur veda was compiled after the kRshNa

yajur veda.

 

Mani

[Guest guest]

I had written:

> The 'Sukla' yajur veda samhita,

> also known as the vAjasaneyaka samhita, is composed purely of

> verses. In other words, it is purely metrical.

> The kRshNa yajur veda or taittirIya samhita, on the other hand,

> has prose and poetry intermixed.

 

As Sri Vishal Agrawal pointed out to me privately, I was a little

bit confused. Actually, the Sukla yajur veda also is mixed prose

and poetry. The thing that distinguishes the two roughly into

"pure" and "impure" is that the Sukla yajur veda does not have

the samhita and brAhmaNa intermixed whereas the kRshNa yajur

veda has them intermingled.

 

As Vishal writes:

 

In the Taittiriya Shakha, the division into Samhita, Brahmana

and Aranyaka is artificial and there is an admixture of Mantra

and Brahmana in ALL the 3 texts, which is why commentators

like Bhatta Bhaskara do not distinguish between the

Samhita/Brahmana and the Aranyaka.

 

Vishal will write a bit more on this in the near future.

 

Sorry for any confusion,

Mani