Prapathaka 2

Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Taittirīya Saṃhitā 5.2 belongs to the Agnicayana dossier, embedding altar-construction within the wider Soma-sacrificial economy. The chapter articulates how the yajamāna’s ritual body is exteriorized into the fire-altar through calibrated acts of selection, placement, and consecration. Its mantras and prose-yajus coordinate spatial ordering (quarters, layers, and boundaries) with temporal ordering (sequence of placements and offerings), thereby converting a building operation into a cosmological re-enactment. The text repeatedly aligns bricks, meters, deities, and vital functions, so that the altar becomes a microcosm: earth/space/sky, seasons, and the breath-systems are ritually “installed.” The chapter’s logic is soteriological and political: by stabilizing Agni in a perfected form, the sacrificer secures continuity of lineage, prosperity, and post-mortem ascent. The liturgy exemplifies the Black Yajurvedic style—dense pragmatic instructions fused with mantra-justifications.