Kanda 3
Soma Pressing & Offering
The Soma pressing rituals, morning, midday, and evening pressings, and the offering formulas for the primary Soma sacrifice.
Prapathakas in Kanda 3
Prapathaka 2
Agnyādheya / Agnicayana preliminaries within the Śrauta new-fire establishment cycle (selection, preparation, and consecratory handling of the three sacred fires and their immediate ritual supports).
Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda (Taittirīya) Kāṇḍa 3, Prapāṭhaka 2 continues the Śrauta program of establishing and stabilizing the sacrificial fires, treating fire not merely as a physical combustion-site but as a ritually generated deity whose “birth” requires controlled transitions: from ordinary fuel to consecrated kindling, from domestic space to altar-space, and from human agency to divine agency. The chapter’s mantric texture repeatedly frames Agni as mediator (hotṛ/adhvaryu’s instrument), household guardian, and cosmic axis, thereby aligning micro-ritual actions—taking embers, laying kindling, anointing/encircling, and protective formulas—with macrocosmic order (ṛta). The prapāṭhaka also encodes priestly coordination: the Adhvaryu’s procedural acts are synchronized with recitations that sacralize implements, directions, and boundaries, minimizing ritual “leakage” (doṣa) and ensuring continuity of the fires. In exegetical tradition, these passages are read as establishing eligibility, purity, and permanence (dhruvatā) of the fires, anticipating later Soma and iṣṭi performances.
Prapathaka 3
Somayāga (Soma-sacrifice) — specifically the Pravargya/Upasad–preparatory complex and its integrations with the Agniṣṭoma framework (heating/handling of gharma, invocations to Aśvins/Indra, and consecratory-protective formulas that precede the main Soma pressing days).
Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda 3.3 belongs to the Soma-sacrificial continuum and is best read as a liturgical-technical unit that consolidates preparatory and protective operations leading into the pressing-day ritual. The chapter’s mantric texture foregrounds the liminal status of the sacrificer and the rite: it repeatedly negotiates purity, heat, and controlled potency—hallmarks of Pravargya/Upasad materials—while simultaneously aligning these with the broader Agniṣṭoma economy of offerings, priestly roles, and cosmic correspondences. The mantras function not merely as invocations but as performative “bindings” that stabilize the rite against error, impurity, and hostile forces, and that authorize the transition from ordinary time to sacrificial time. The chapter’s theology is characteristically Brāhmaṇa-like: deities are mapped onto ritual implements and sequences, and success is framed as the correct orchestration of speech (mantra), heat (tapas/gharma), and offering (havis) to secure vitality, cattle, and sovereignty.