[Advaita-l] Jayaadi Homam (was: Veda Vyasa Ashtothara)

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

On 7/29/07, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:

> >
> > 1. The jaya group
> > 2. abhyAtAna group
> > 3. rAShTrabhR^it group
> > 4. One for prajApati with prajApate na tva, etc
> > 5. Three, one each for bhUH, bhuvaH and suvaH.
> > 6. One finally to agni with yadasya karmaNaH etc.
> >
>
> PGS puts 3 first and 4,5, and 6 are replaced by 5 ahutis to Agni.
>
> > The jaya group consists of 13 offerings starting with citta~nca svAhA
> > up to prajApatir jayAnindrAya ... svAhA. This is from taittirIya
> > samhitA 3.4.4.
> >
>
> The information I have matches your description.  But interestingly it
> doesn't say these mantras are from TS.  Indeed they are given without
> svaras at all so until your article I thought they were sutrokta not
> Vedic.
>
> > The abhyAtAna group consists of 18 offerings beginning with
> > agnirbhutAnAm and ending with pitaraH pitAmahAH, etc. All the mantras
> > end with asmin brahman ... devahUtyAM svAhA. This is from TS 3.4.5.
> >
>
> Same in PGS though once again they are given without svaras.
>
> > The rAshTrabhR^it group consists of 13 offerings beginning with
> > R^itAShADR^itatAmAgnir, etc. This is from TS 3.4.7. Note that this
> > group comes in the udakashAnti also.
> >
>
> As I mentioned before the PGS puts it first.  Also the Shuklayajurvedic
> tradition thinks there are only 12 ahutis.

My bad, it's indeed 12, not 1. I mis-counted ;-). However, it seems my
wording was ambiguous. Of the 12, 10 of them have 2 Ahutis each, so a
total of 10*2+2 = 22 Ahutis for the rAShTrabHR^it group. For example,
the first goes (using Wikners notation):

.r_taa_.saa.d.r_tadhaa!maa_gnirga!ndha_rvastasyau.sa!dhayo.apsa_rasa_
uurjo_ naama_
sa i_da.m brahma!k.sa_tra.m paa!tu_ taa i_da.m brahma!k.sa_tra.m
paa!!ntu_ tasmai_ svaahaa!! | taabhya_.h svaahaa!! ||

> It is interesting that the Shuklayajurveda was supposed to have broken off
> from the Krshnayajurveda but it seems even afterward they did "borrow"
> occasionally.

The bulk of the mantras in the Apastamba gR^ihya-sUtra are not to be
found in the samhitA or the shAkhA. I think we can safely assume lots
of borrowing. Note that the kAThakam, aruNam and the
svAdhyaaya-braahmaNam are originally from the kAThaka branch, as
pointed out by BhaTTa bhAskara Mishra. Of course phonetic evidence
also confirms this traditional view. Now the kAThakam consisting of 3
chapters forms the 9, 10, 11th chapters of the 3rd aShTakam of the
brAhmaNam, and the other two are the 1st and 2nd chapters of the
AraNyakam. This was a wholesale borrowing to say the least.

Note that unlike the shukla-yajur veda, the jayaadi is mandatory for
any smArta sacrifice following the Apastamba sUtra. So there is no
excuse to omit it.

Rama