Shatapatha Brahmana facts for kids

Hindu texts

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The Shatapatha Brahmana (which means "Brāhmaṇa of one hundred paths" in Sanskrit) is a very old and important book from ancient India. It's like a detailed guide or commentary on a part of the Vedas called the Śukla Yajurveda. People believe it was written by a wise sage named Yajnavalkya.

This book is considered one of the most complete and important of the Brahmanas, which are texts that explain the Vedas. It tells us a lot about Vedic sacrificial rituals, their hidden meanings (symbolism), and ancient stories (mythology).

The Shatapatha Brahmana also shows us that ancient people had some amazing scientific knowledge. For example, when it describes how to build complex fire-altars for rituals, it includes ideas about geometry. It even has early ideas related to pi and the Pythagorean theorem. The text also talks about observational astronomy, mentioning things like planetary distances and the idea that the Earth is round. These ideas come from the Vedic period.

This text is also very important for understanding Vaishnavism, a branch of Hinduism that worships Vishnu. Many well-known stories and avatars (different forms) of Vishnu, which are found in later texts called Puranas, have their beginnings in the Shatapatha Brahmana. Five of Vishnu's first avatars – Matsya (the fish), Kurma (the tortoise), Varaha (the boar), Narasimha (the man-lion), and Vamana (the dwarf) – are mentioned here. These are the first five in the list of the ten main avatars, known as the Dashavatara.

There are two main versions, or "recensions," of the Shatapatha Brahmana that we know of today. They are called the Madhyandina recension and the Kanva recension. This article will mostly talk about the Madhyandina version.

When Was It Written?

Scholars believe the Shatapatha Brahmana was written a very long time ago. Many experts, like Arthur Berriedale Keith and M. Witzel, think it belongs to the later part of the Brahmana period, which was around the 8th to 6th century BCE. Jan N. Bremmer suggests it was around 700 BCE.

While some parts of the text might be even older, passed down orally, the final written version is thought to be from around 300 BCE, according to Julius Eggeling. The book mentions the use of iron, which means it couldn't have been written before 1200–1000 BCE. It also shows cultural and philosophical ideas that came after other texts from the Iron Age, but just before the time of the Buddha (around the 5th century BCE).

Different Versions and What They Contain

The Shatapatha Brahmana exists in two main versions, or "recensions." These are like different editions of the same book. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has studied these versions.

Here's a quick look at how they are different:

The 14 books of the Madhyandina version are split into two main parts. The first nine books explain the first 18 books of the Śukla (white) Yajurveda very closely, often line by line. The last five books of the Shatapatha Brahmana cover extra material and newer rituals. The very last book, the 14th, is actually a famous text called the Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad.

The IGNCA also notes that the names of the main books (Kandas) are different between the two versions, and they appear in a different order:

The name "Shatapatha" means "one hundred paths." This name might come from the Madhyandina version having exactly one hundred chapters (Adhyayas). However, the Kanva version, which has 104 chapters, is also called by the same name. In Indian traditions, words like "sata" (one hundred) and "sahasra" (one thousand) don't always mean an exact number; they can just mean "many."

Where to Find Manuscripts and Translations

If you want to read the Shatapatha Brahmana, there are different copies (manuscripts) and translations available.

For the Madhyandina School version, all the English translations were done by Julius Eggeling in five volumes. You can find these online:

See also

• Brahmana
• Dashavatara
• Yajnavalkya
• Yajurveda