Sacred Texts Hinduism
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The Texts of the White Yajurvedatranslated by Ralph T.H. Griffith[1899] |
By rule the Sacred Grass is scattered eastward, a robe to
clothe the earth when dawns are breaking.
Widely it spreads around and far extended, fair for the Gods
and bringing peace and freedom.
Let the expansive Doors be widely opened, like wives who
deck their beauty for their husbands.
Lofty, celestial, all-impelling Portals, admit the Gods and
give them easy access.
--29:29-30.
The Yajur Veda is one of the four Vedas. It contains liturgical texts used during various important Hindu rituals. There are two major samhitas, or collections, the Black and White. The White Yajurveda, translated here, focuses on the liturgy, whereas the Black Yajurveda includes more explanatory material about the rituals.
This is the last of the Griffith Veda translations to be digitized. We worked from a somewhat problematic 1976 photographic reprint of the first edition, printed in Victorian India. As with the other volumes, footnotes and indexes are omitted for technical reasons. Long vowels are indicated, but not 'dotted' consonants; this is because Unicode was not available when we started this project. We hope to revisit all of the Griffith texts before too long.