The Yajurveda (Sanskrit: यजुर्वेद, Yajurveda, from ya jus meaning "worship", and Veda meaning "knowledge") is the Veda primarily of prose mantras for worship rituals.

An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text is a compilation of ritual offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire. Yajurveda is one of the four Vedas, and one of the scriptures of Hinduism.

The exact century of Yajurveda's composition is unknown and estimated by Witzel to be between 1200 to 800 BCE, contemporaneous with Samaveda and Atharvaveda.

The Yajurveda is broadly grouped into two – the "black" or "dark" (Krishna) Yajurveda and the "white" or "bright" (Shukla) Yajurveda. The term "black" implies "the un-arranged, unclear, motley collection" of verses in Yajurveda, in contrast to the "white" which implies the "well arranged, clear" Yajurveda.

The black Yajurveda has survived in four recensions, while two recensions of white Yajurveda have survived into modern times. The earliest and most ancient layer of Yajurveda Samhita includes about 1,875 verses, that are distinct yet borrow and build upon the foundation of verses in Rigveda.

The middle layer includes the Satapatha Brahmana, one of the largest Brahmana texts in the Vedic collection. The youngest layer of Yajurveda text includes the largest collection of primary Upanishads, influential to various schools of Hindu philosophy.

These include the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Isha Upanishad, the Taittiriya Upanishad, the Katha Upanishad, the Shvetashvatara Upanishad and the Maitri Upanishad.

Two of the oldest surviving manuscript copies of the Shukla Yajurveda sections have been discovered in Nepal and Western Tibet, and these are dated to the 12th-century CE.

Dating and historical context

The core text of the Yajurveda falls within the classical Mantra period of Vedic Sanskrit at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE - younger than the Rigveda, and roughly contemporary with the Atharvaveda, the Rigvedic Khilani, and the Sāmaveda. The scholarly consensus dates the bulk of the Yajurveda and Atharvaveda hymns to the early Indian Iron Age, after c. 1200 and before 800 BCE. Georg Feuerstein suggests that the dates given to most of these texts are far too late.

Text of Yajurveda

Recensions

The Yajurveda text includes Shukla Yajurveda of which about 16 recensions are known, while the Krishna Yajurveda may have had as many as 86 recensions. Only two recensions of the Shukla Yajurveda have survived, Madhyandina and Kanva, and others are known by name only because they are mentioned in other texts. These two recensions are nearly the same, except for a few differences. In contrast to Shukla Yajurveda, the four surviving recensions of Krishna Yajurveda are very different versions.

Shukla Yajurveda

The Samhita in the Shukla Yajurveda is called the Vajasaneyi Samhita. The name Vajasaneyi is derived from Vajasaneya, the patronymic of Yajnavalkya, and the founder of the Vajasaneyi branch. There are two (nearly identical) surviving recensions of the Vajasaneyi Samhita (VS): Vajasaneyi Madhyandina and Vajasaneyi Kanva.

The lost recensions of the White Yajurveda, mentioned in other texts of ancient India, include Jabala, Baudhya, Sapeyi, Tapaniya, Kapola, Paundravatsa, Avati, Paramavatika, Parasara, Vaineya, Vaidheya, Katyayana and Vaijayavapa.

Krishna Yajurveda

There are four surviving recensions of the Krishna Yajurveda – Taittirīya saṃhitā, Maitrayani saṃhitā, Kaṭha saṃhitā and Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā. A total of eighty-six recensions are mentioned to exist in Vayu Purana, however, the vast majority of them are believed to be lost. The Katha school is referred to as a sub-school of Carakas (wanderers) in some ancient texts of India because they did their scholarship as they wandered from place to place.

The best known and best-preserved of these recensions is the Taittirīya saṃhitā. Some attribute it to Tittiri, a pupil of Yaska and mentioned by Panini. The text is associated with the Taittiriya school of the Yajurveda and attributed to the pupils of sage Tittiri (literally, partridge birds).

The Maitrayani saṃhitā is the oldest Yajurveda Samhita that has survived, and it differs largely in content from the Taittiriyas, as well as in some different arrangements of chapters, but is much more detailed.

The Kāṭhaka saṃhitā or the Caraka-Kaṭha saṃhitā, according to tradition was compiled by Katha, a disciple of Vaisampayana. Like the Maitrayani Samhita, it offers a much more detailed discussion of some rituals than the younger Taittiriya Samhita that frequently summarizes such accounts.

The Kapiṣṭhala saṃhitā or the Kapiṣṭhala-Kaṭha saṃhitā, named after the sage Kapisthala is extant only in some large fragments and edited without accent marks. This text is practically a variant of the Kāṭhaka saṃhitā.

Each regional edition (recension) of Yajurveda had Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyakas, Upanishads as part of the text, with Shrautasutras, Grhyasutras and Pratishakhya attached to the text. In Shukla Yajurveda, the text organization is the same for both Madhayndina and Kanva shakhas. The texts attached to Shukla Yajurveda include the Katyayana Shrautasutra, Paraskara Grhyasutra and Shukla Yajurveda Pratishakhya. In Krishna Yajurveda, each of the recensions has or had their Brahmana text mixed into the Samhita text, thus creating a motley of the prose and verses, and making it unclear, disorganized.

Samhitas of Yajurveda

The Vajasaneyi Samhita has forty chapters or adhyayas, containing the formulas used with the following rituals:

The Yajurveda has six primary Upanishads embedded within it.