Prapathaka 7

Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda Kāṇḍa 5, Prapāṭhaka 7 belongs to the dense Śrauta stratum where Soma-liturgies are interwoven with political theology. The chapter’s mantric texture repeatedly aligns the yajamāna with cosmic functions—Agni as mouth, Soma as kingly sap, and the quarters as a ritually annexed territory—so that sacrifice becomes a technology of sovereignty. The sequence of formulas characteristically alternates between pragmatic injunction-mantras (yajus) and expansive identifications (bandhu), mapping implements, oblations, and bodily faculties onto deities and meters. The prapāṭhaka thus advances a program of “empowerment through oblation”: speech is stabilized by Br̥haspati, vigor by Indra, continuity by the Aśvins, and legitimacy by Varuṇa–Mitra. In doing so it exemplifies the Black Yajurvedic style: compact ritual directives embedded in a metaphysical grammar that makes kingship, fertility, and cosmic order mutually reinforcing.