Brahmana
ब्राह्मण brāhmaṇaThe prose layer of each Veda that explains the rituals and their meaning. (Distinct from Brahman, the absolute, and from a brahmin, a member of the priestly class.)
Where this term appears
- Shruti and Smriti: what counts as Hindu scripture? Scriptures
The word means "compilation." Wrapped around it came the Brahmanas , prose manuals that explain the rituals and the meaning of the hymns, addressed to the priests who had to perform them.
- What are the Puranas? Scriptures
In the earliest usage, back in the Brahmana literature attached to the Vedas, purana was not the title of a class of books at all.
- What are the Upanishads? Scriptures
There are the Brahmanas , the prose manuals that explain the rituals.
- What are the Vedas? Scriptures
Around it accreted the Brahmana ( BRAAH-ma-na ), prose manuals that explain the rituals, justify them, and tell the myths that anchor them.
- Devas and Asuras Deities
Then the Brahmanas, the great ritual prose texts of roughly the early first millennium BCE, become saturated with devasura combat myths: the gods and the asuras contend for this world and that, and the gods win…
- How many gods does Hinduism have? Deities
There is no single fixed number, and the widely repeated figure of 330 million gods rests on a mistranslation. The oldest texts speak of thirty-three gods, not…
- Karma, bhakti and jnana: the three paths to moksha Essentials
…ortion": the hymns and the elaborate ritual manuals, the Samhitas and Brahmanas, which are concerned with what to do , the sacrifices and rites that sustain the order of things.
- The Gayatri Mantra Worship
Manu 2.36 to 38 gives the age of initiation for brahmana, kshatriya and vaishya, and lists no fourth varna; 2.39 makes the man who misses it a vratya , fallen from the Savitri.