A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.2039

c5.2039

How the separation into two Sanhitās arose has not been ascertained. It probably originated in a schism led by the sage Yājnawalkya; but if it did not, it produced one, and the adherents of the two divisions were hostile to each other and quarrelled like men of different creeds. In later days a legend was invented to account for the division, which is thus given by the Vishnu and Vāyu Purānas : The Yajur-veda, in twenty-seven branches (Sākhās), was taught by Vaisampāyana to his disciple Yājnawalkya. Vaisampāyana had the misfortune to kill his sister's child by an accidental kick, and he then called upon his disciples to perform the appropriate expiatory penance. Yājnawalkya refused to join the "miserable inefficient Brāhmans," and a quarrel ensued. The teacher called upon the disciple to give up all that he had learnt from him; and the disciple, with the same quick temper, vomited forth the Yajur texts which he had acquired, and they fell upon the ground stained with blood. The other pupils were turned into partridges (Tittiri), and they picked up the disgorged texts; hence the part of the Veda which was thus acquired was called Taittirīya and Black. Yājñawalkya sorrowfully departed, and by the performance of severe penances induced the Sun to impart to him those Yajur texts which his master had not possessed. The Sun then assumed the form of a horse (Vājin), and communicated to him the desired texts. The priests of this portion of the Veda were called Vājins, while the Saṃhitā itself was called Vājasaneyī, and also White (or bright), because it was revealed by the sun. The statement that Yājñawalkya received this Veda from the sun is, however, earlier than the Purāṇas, for it is mentioned by the grammarian Kātyāyana. A more reasonable and intelligible explanation is, that Vājasaneyī is a patronymic of Yājñawalkya, the offspring of Vājasani, and that Taittirīya is derived from Tittiri, the name of a pupil of Yāska’s. Weber, the man best acquainted with this Veda, says, “However absurd this legend (of the Purāṇas) may be, a certain amount of sense lurks beneath its surface. The Black Yajur is, in fact, a motley undigested jumble of different pieces; and I am myself more inclined to derive the name Taittirīya from the variegated partridge (Tittiri) than from the Rishi Tittiri.” Goldstücker’s view is, that the “motley character of the Black Yajur-veda arises from the circumstance that the distinction between the Mantra and Brāhmaṇa portions is not so clearly established in it as in the other Vedas, hymns and matter properly belonging to the Brāhmaṇas being there intermixed. This defect is remedied in the White Yajur-veda, and it points, therefore, to a period when the material of the old Yajur was brought into a system consonant with prevalent theories, literary and ritualistic.”