Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/126

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88
THE BRAHMANIC PERIOD AND LITERATURE

fice, to advise the other priests on doubtful points, and to correct their mistakes. The Hotri had simply to recite, and if he knew the hymns of the Rig-Veda, he did not require any separate compilation. But the duties of the Adhvaryu and the Udgatri required special training. Special sacrificial formulas must have

UTENSILS FOR RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.

existed for the former, and a stock of the Rig-Veda hymns, set to music, must also have existed for the latter in the Vedic Period, for we find the names Yajur and Sama in the Rig-Veda hymns. These formulas and chants were, however, separately collected and compiled at a later age, and these separate compilations, in their final form, are the Yajur-Veda and the Sama-Veda as we now have them.