BRAHMANA, the prose commentaries on the "Collections" (Samhitas) of Vedic texts, whose meaning and ritual they were written to elucidate, and, like them, regarded as revealed (San skrit, v. BRAHMAN). Linguistically, with their appendages (the still more mystic Aranyakas and the philosophic Upanishads), they link the Vedic with the classical Sanskrit. The term may be derived from the neuter brahma (sacred utterance or rite), and so mean a comment on a text or explanation of a rite.
The elaborate Vedic rites of sacrifice, with a gradual tendency to find in all their minutiae a theosophic or mystic meaning, naturally created a demand for exegesis. This led in practical utility to its extension to the texts and ritual used by each class of officiants. The ritual required four priests, the Brahman (q.v.) as supervisor; the Hotri, singer of hymns; the Udgatri, chanter, and the Adh varyu, or offerer, who prepared the offering-ground, built the fire place and altar, made the oblations, and muttered the incantations and prayers. Each officiant had three assistants. The manuals used by the Hotri were the Rig-V eda-Samhita, the Aitareya, the Kaushitaki (or Shankhayana), all works of a priestly school, and the two Aranyakas, similarly named. Both these Brahmanas dealt mainly with the Soma-sacrifice and the latter with other sacrificial rites. The parts sung were either litanies or verses invoking the gods to whom oblation was made or else they were responses to the Udgatri's chants. The chanters had two schools, Tandins and Talavakaras, and they used the Sdma-V eda-Samhita which deals mainly with the various modes of chanting. This work also is chiefly concerned with the Soma-sacrifice.
The Tandins had three Brahmanas, of which the Panchavimsa was the most important; the Talavakaras followed the Jaiminiya (or Talavakara) Brahmana, which work includes the Upanishad and Arsheya-Brahmanas. For the Adhvaryu's use the Yajur-veda Samhita formed a comprehensive guide to sacrificial procedure. No less than five schools expounded the Yajur-veda ; these schools fall into two groups : the older or Black (Krishna) Yajus embrac ing four schools, the remaining school (Vajasaneyin) forming the white (Sukla) Yajus. The Black Yajus Samhitas, four in number, have survived only in part. Their arrangement suggests a lack of reverence for the Vedic text, which is interspersed with sec tarian expositions. This created a singularly confused mass of mantras in sections, with exegesis and supplements, a creation quite in accord with the new prominence given, in the Yajur-veda itself, to gods like Vishnu and Rudra, at the expense of Varuna, Ushas, Parjanya and others. Consciously or not the Adhvaryus were modifying the Vedic faith, but the Vajasaneyins reformed this practice and, following the other priestly schools, redacted their Satapatha Brahmana as a separate commentary with the verses of the Veda apart. Later, the Taittiriya school of the Black Yajus also incorporated a new commentary into a separate Brahmana bearing their name.
The Brahmanas supply the beginnings of grammar and ety mology, astronomy, and the philosophy of the Atma or universal soul. They did even more than this. In the Rig-Veda attempts had been made to find an all-comprehending first principle in Prajapati, Vishvakarma or Purusha, but it is in the Satapatha-Brahmana that we first find brahma exalted as the one moving force behind and above the gods. The Brahmanas were originally lectures, or rather, perhaps, notes for lectures delivered orally to candidates for priestly offices. Gradually stereotyped by being reduced to writing, they still show that Hindu thought was intent on finding in the Vedic rites an inner meaning as well as ethical rules (dharma). The conception of Prajapati as Brahma Svayambhu (Brahma self-existing), the supreme first principle, paved the way for the Vedanta philosophy and the Upanishads.