Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c10.26

c10.26

The Yajurveda has two divisions called Black (Kṛishṇa) and White (Śukla), also called Vājasaneyi-Saṁhitā. The white Yajurveda contains only the Mantras, the prayers, and sacrificial formulae which the priest has to utter, while the black Yajurveda contains the Mantras in verse and also a portion in prose, the earliest Indian prose, presenting the sacrificial rites that go with the Mantras along with discussions thereon, anticipating the later Brāhmaṇa literature. Thus from the point of view of education, the Yajurveda has made a material contribution to it by the creation of a prose literature which later culminated in the literary masterpieces of the Upanishads.