The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c26.3

v1.c26.3

It has also to be remembered that there are recorded in the Rigveda hymns from many families, and that we must assume that there existed according to the divisions of these families variations in the ritual and in the terminology, helped doubtless by considerations of metre which evidently weighed a good deal with the poets. The Rigveda contains in some places almost a superabundance of technical terms,² the precise point of which we cannot always now determine. The number of priests engaged is proof of the already high complication of the ritual. We have the names Hotṛ, Adhvaryu, Āvayās, Agnimindha, Grāvagrābha, and Çaṁstṛ in one place, and Hotṛ, Potṛ, Neṣṭṛ, Agnīdh, Praçāstṛ, Adhvaryu, and Brahman in another. In other passages we find Upavaktṛ, Udagrābha, Purohita, Sāmagas, Sāmanyas, and the two Çamitṛs. Of these the Udagrābha and Grāvagrābha disappear as such in the later ritual: their manual acts became doubtless of less moment, and were left to the assistants of the Adhvaryu: the Upavaktṛ or Praçāstṛ became the Maitrāvaruṇa, and his duty of giving to the Hotṛ the direction to recite his verses is expressly mentioned.¹ Moreover, we find the clear distinction already made between the recitations of the Hotṛs to which the words *uktha* and *çaṅs* apply and the songs of the Sāman singers which are distinguished by the use of the Gāyatrī and Pragātha metres, and by the frequent use of triads of verses for singing as strophes.² For the Adhvaryus there were no doubt prose formulae: the long sets of verses which the Yajurveda provides for them are never hinted at.