Shatapatha Brahmana

The Shatapatha Brahmana (Sanskrit: शतपथब्राह्मणम्, lit. 'Brāhmaṇa of one hundred paths', IAST: Śatapatha Brāhmaṇam, abbreviated to 'SB')[1] is a commentary on the Śukla Yajurveda. It is attributed to the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya. Described as the most complete, systematic, and important of the Brahmanas[2] (commentaries on the Vedas), it contains detailed explanations of Vedic sacrificial rituals, symbolism, and mythology.

Quotes about the Shatapatha Brahmana

• Immediately after Jacobi, Tilak, and Thibaut had published their opinions, another astronomer, Sankar B. Dikshit, published a short article in Indian Antiquary. He had come across a passage in the Satapatha Brahmana (ii.1.2. 2-3) that added support to Jacobi's and Tilak's contention that Krttika once corresponded to the vernal equinox. Intending originally to publish a detailed paper on the matter, after the astronomical debate suddenly erupted, he was inspired to immediately bring his findings to the at- tention of the Indological community. He translates the passage as follows:
  "[One] should,therefore, consecrate [the sacred fires] on Krittikah. These, certainly, do not deviate from the Eastern direction. All other naksatras deviate from the Eastern direction" (S. B. Dikshit 1985, 245).
  Dikshit interpreted the passage as indicating that Krttika was situated due east, as opposed to the other stars which were either to the left, or to the right of this point. This suggests that they were situated on the celestial equator during the vernal equinox, or that their declination was nil when the passage was composed. Nowadays, Krttika is to the north of the celestial equator, due to the precession of the equinoxes. Dikshit calculates that the brightest star of this naksatra would have been on the equator around 2990 B.C.E.
  • in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12

• The Shatapatha Brāhmana, for instance, narrates the oft-quoted legend of Videgha Māthava, probably king of Videha (a region generally identified with a part of north Bihar), who was ‘on the Sarasvatī’. Māthava, the story goes, carried Agni, the divine Fire, in his mouth; his family priest invoked the Fire so efficiently that Agni ‘flashed forth’ from the king’s mouth and fell on the earth. Agni then ‘went burning along this earth towards the east . . . He burned over all these rivers’, stopping finally at the Sādanīrā (identified with the Gandak river). Agni instructed Māthava to take up his abode ‘to the east of this river’. The text adds that ‘in former times’, that region was ‘very marshy because it had not been tasted by Agni’ but ‘nowadays, however, it is very cultivated, for the Brāhmans have caused Agni to taste it through sacrifices’. Agni, falling to the ground near the Sarasvatī, appears to be one more image of the river’s drying up. The king—followed, we may assume, by his clan—then migrated eastward to the Gangetic region and resettled there.
  • quoted from Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India. Shatapatha Brāhmana, 1.4.1.10-19. See Eggeling, Julius, The Satapatha Brāhmana°, pp. 104-06.