ABSTRACT
Modern Hindu worship is strongly influenced by (but by no means exclusively grounded in) the texts of the ancient Vedas and Vedic sacrificial ritual. It is therefore important that we examine this body of ancient ritual and its continuity into modern Hinduism. In this way, we can begin to appreciate the ways in which the system of ancient Vedic ritual gave rise to and interacted with religious forms that succeeded it (Renou 1960; Halbfass 1991). It helps to think of the Vedic ritual system as operating like a complex entity made up of hundreds of moving and interlocking parts. Over time, some of these parts were lost or became discontinued, but many were either transformed or have remained largely intact for more than three millennia. The primary reason this preservation has been so successful is because the process is grounded in a textual record (i.e. the Vedas) that has been rigorously and ceaselessly transmitted from generation to generation. The most authoritative canonical sources for these rituals are a series of texts called Shrauta Sutras, ‘Aphorisms of Vedic Ritual Performance.’ These compendia of ritual instructions, linked to different branches of Vedic literature, date from the fifth to the third centuries BCE (Kashikar 1968; Gonda 1977). These texts provide instructions for ritual officiants whose families have maintained the textual and performative knowledge of the sacrifices as expressed in the Rig, Sama, and Yajur-Vedas (shruti). Thus, the name given to the body of rituals prescribed therein is called shrauta, derived from shruti, the word for Vedic ‘revelation.’
