Excerpt from The Laws of Manu: Or Manava Dharma-Sastra, Abridged English Translation
Sruti and Smriti. - The sacred books of the Hindus are divided into two great classes, called Sruti and Smriti. Sruti, which means 'hearing' denotes direct revelation; Smriti, 'recollection' includes the sacred books which are admitted to have been composed by human authors.
Classed under Sruti, are the Vedas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanishads. Smriti, in its widest sense, includes almost the whole of post-vedic literature The principal divisions are the six Vedangas, the Smarta-Sutras, the Dharma-Sastras or Law Books, the Epic Poems, the eighteen Puranas, and the Upa-Puranas.
Yajur Veda. - The Rig-Veda denotes the Veda of hymns of praise. The Sama-Veda contains extracts from the Rig-Veda, arranged for the purpose of being chanted at sacrifices. The Atharva-Veda is of later origin than the others. It is sometimes called the Cursing Veda, because it contains so many mantras supposed to be able to cause the destruction of enemies.
The Yajur-Veda will be noticed rather more at length from its close connection with the Dharma-Satras. The name comes from yaj, 'sacrifice.' It contains the formulas and verses to be muttered by the priests and their assistants who had chiefly to prepare the sacrificial ground, to dress the altar, slay the victims, and pour out the libations.
The first sentences in one of the two divisions were to be uttered by the priest as he cut from a particular tree a switch with which to drive away the calves from the cows whose milk was to furnish the material of the offering.
There are two principal texts of the Yajur-Veda, called respectively the White and the Black, or the Vajasaneyi and Taittiriya Sanhitas. The Vishnu Purana gives the followiug explanation of their names: Vaisampayana, a pupil of the great Vyasa, was the original teacher of the Black Yajur-Veda. Yajnavalkya, one of his disciples, having displeased him, was called upon by his master to part with the knowledge which he had acquired from him. He forthwith vomited the Yajur-Veda. The other disciples of Vaisampayana, assuming the form of partridges (tittiri), picked up from the ground its several dirtied texts. From this circumstance it received the name of Taittiriya Krishna Yajur-Veda.
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