Priests A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively of the Vedic religion The religion of the Vedic period is a historical predecessor of Hinduism. Its liturgy is reflected in the Mantra portion of the four Vedas, which are compiled in Sanskrit. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering rites that often involved sacrifices. This mode of worship is largely unchanged today within Hinduism; however, only a were officiants of the yajna In Hinduism, Yajña is a ritual of sacrifice (Monier-Williams gives the meanings "worship, prayer, praise; offering, oblation, sacrifice") derived from the practice of Vedic times. It is performed to please the gods or to attain certain wishes. An essential element is the sacrificial fire - the divine Agni - into which oblations are service. As persons trained for the ritual and proficient in its practice, they were called ṛtvij ("regularly-sacrificing In Hinduism, Yajña is a ritual of sacrifice (Monier-Williams gives the meanings "worship, prayer, praise; offering, oblation, sacrifice") derived from the practice of Vedic times. It is performed to please the gods or to attain certain wishes. An essential element is the sacrificial fire - the divine Agni - into which oblations are"). As members of a social class, they were generically known as vipra ("sage The wise old man is an archetype as described by Carl Jung, as well as a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character. The wise old man is usually a profound philosopher distinguished for wisdom and sound judgment. These characters usually have beards") or kavi ("seer").

Contents

Ṛtvij

Chief priests

Specialization of roles attended the elaboration and development of the ritual corpus over time. Eventually a full complement of sixteen ṛtvijas became the custom for major ceremonies. The sixteen consisted of four chief priests and their assistants, with each of the four chief priests playing a unique role:

Assistants

In the systematic expositions of the shrauta sutras, [1] which date to the fifth or sixth century BCE, the assistants are classified into four groups associated with each of the four chief priests, although the classifications are artificial and in some cases incorrect:

This last classification is incorrect, as the formal assistants of the brahman were actually assistants of the hotṛ and the adhvaryu.

The Brahman

A similar attempt at symmetry, as well as an attempt to inflate the importance of the Atharvaveda The Atharvaveda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेदः, atharvaveda, a tatpurusha compound of atharvan, an ancient Rishi, and veda is a sacred text of Hinduism, and one of the four Vedas, often called the "fourth Veda". According to tradition, the Atharvaveda was mainly composed by two groups of rishis known as the Atharvanas and the, was a claim (in the Gopatha Brahmana) that this veda was the province of the brahman: allegedly, just as specific vedas were associated with the other three chief priests, the Atharvaveda was the fourth and presumably superior veda for the fourth and senior most of the chief priests. This theoretical fancy had no basis in fact or likelihood, as the Atharvaveda made no contribution to the liturgy of the solemn high rituals. In practice, the brahman function was usually performed by a bahvṛca ("one who has many verses", i.e. a Rgvedin), suggesting a historical split of the duties of the hotṛ in the development of the brahman as a distinct role.

Early references

The older references uniformly indicate the hotṛ as the presiding priest, with perhaps only the adhvaryu as his assistant in the earliest times. The phrase "seven hotars" is found more than once in the Rgveda. RV.2.1.2 enumerates them as the hotṛ, potṛ, neṣṭṛ, agnīdh, prashāstṛ (meaning the maitrāvaruna), adhvaryu and brahman (meaning the brāhmanācchamsin). The rgvedic Brahmanas The Brāhmaṇas are part of the Hindu śruti literature. They are commentaries on the four Vedas, detailing the proper performance of rituals, Aitareya The Aitareya Brahmana is a ritualistic Vedic text in Vedic Sanskrit language. This Brahmana is associated with the Rigveda in the Shakala shakha and Kausitaki, specify seven hotrakas to recite shastras (litanies): hotṛ, brāhmanācchamsin, maitrāvaruna, potṛ, neṣṭṛ, agnīdh and acchāvāka. They also carry a legend to explain the origin of the offices of the subrahmanya and the grāvastut.

Purohita

The requirements of the fully developed ritual were rigorous enough that only professional priests could perform them adequately. Thus, whereas in the earliest times, the true sacrificer, or intended beneficiary of the rite, might have been a direct participant, in Vedic times he was only a sponsor, the yajamāna, with the hotṛ or brahman taking his stead in the ritual. In this seconding lay the origins of the growing importance of the purohita (literally, "one who is placed in front"), a term originally for a domestic chaplain, especially of a prince. It was not unusual for a purohita to be the hotṛ or brahman at a sacrifice for his master, besides conducting other more domestic (gṛhya) rituals for him also. In latter days, with the disappearance of vedic ritual practice, purohita has become a generic term for "priest".

Philological comparisons

Comparison with the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster . It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BC in Iran. The term Zoroastrianism is, in general usage, essentially synonymous with Mazdaism (the worship of Ahura Mazda, exalted by Zoroaster as the supreme divine authority), a distinct religion with the same origins, shows the antiquity of terms for priests such as atharvan (cognate to Avestan Avestan is an Iranian language known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. The language must also at some time have been a natural language, but how long ago that was is unknown. Its status as a sacred language ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the athravan) and hotar (Av. zaotar) "invoker, sacrificer". While hotar/zaotar is well understood, the original meaning of atharvan/athravan is unknown. The word atharvan/athravan does not appear in either the Vedas or in the oldest Iranian texts, and in the Younger Avesta appears in a context that suggests "missionary," perhaps by metathesis from Indo-Iranian *arthavan "possessing purpose." In the Upanishads, the term appears for example in atharvāngiras, a compound of atharvan and angiras, either two eponymous rishis or their family names.

In present-day Indian Zoroastrian (Parsi Parsi or Parsee (Persian: پارسی) refers to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent. The term was originally used by the ancient Persians to refer to themselves. The influence of Arabic led to a drop in the 'p' sound in the Persian language, changing "Parsi" to "Farsi" (the name) tradition the word athornan is used to distinguish the priesthood from the laity (the behdin). These subdivisions (in the historical Indian context, castes), and the terms used to describe them, are relatively recent developments specific to Indian Zoroastrians and although the words themselves are old, the meaning that they came to have for the Parsis are influenced by their centuries-long coexistence with Hinduism. It appears then that the Indian Zoroastrian priests re-adopted the older athravan (in preference to the traditional, and very well attested derivative asron) for its similarity to Hinduism's arthavan, which the Parsi priests then additionally assumed was derived from Avestan atar Atar is the Zoroastrian concept for "burning and unburning fire" and "visible and invisible fire" (Mirza, 1987:389) "fire". This folk-etymology, which may "have been prompted by what is probably a mistaken assumption of the importance of fire in the ancient Indo-Iranian religion" (Boyce, 1982:16).

There is no evidence to sustain the supposition that the division of priestly functions among the Hotar, the Udgatar and the Adhvaryu is comparable to the Celtic The Iron Age and Roman-era Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Europe who spoke Celtic languages priesthood as reported by Strabo Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher, with the Druids A druid was a member of the priestly class in Gaul and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe during the Iron Age. Following the invasion of Gaul by the Roman Empire, the druids were suppressed by the Roman government from the 1st century CE and disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century, although there may have been later as high priests, the Bards In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities doing the chanting and the Vates The earliest Latin writers used vates to denote "prophets" and soothsayers in general; the word fell into disuse in Latin until it was revived by Virgil . Thus Ovid could describe himself as the vates of Eros performing the actual sacrifice.

Notes

  1. ^ Shānkhāyana SS 13.4.1, Āsvalāyana SS 4.1.4-6.

See also

External links

Categories: Hindu sages | Priests This category is not limited to the "priests" of a single religious denomination, although it is limited to priests in a context of religion. This category is not intended for people that are only called priest in a figurative sense, or for religious leaders that are not called priest usually, notwithstanding some similarity in the | Vedic civilization

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