Upanishads · Prāṇāgnihotra 3.1
॥
Devanāgarī
अस्य शरीरयज्ञस्य यूपरशनाशोभितस्य को यजमानः । का पत्नी । के ऋत्विजः । के सदस्याः
Transliteration (IAST)
asya śarīrayajñasya yūparaśanāśobhitasya ko yajamānaḥ | kā patnī | ke ṛtvijaḥ | ke sadasyāḥ
Word-by-word
SanskritIASTMeaning
अस्य शरीर-यज्ञस्यasya śarīra-yajñasyaof this bodily sacrifice
यूप-रशना-शोभितस्यyūpa-raśanā-śobhitasyaadorned with post and cord
कः यजमानः का पत्नीkaḥ yajamānaḥ kā patnīwho is the sacrificer, who the wife
के ऋत्विजः के सदस्याःke ṛtvijaḥ ke sadasyāḥwho the priests, who those seated
Translation
Of this bodily sacrifice, adorned with post and cord — who is the sacrificer? who is the wife? who are the priests? who are those seated?
Version
5671b25e53d4 · published Aug 12, 2026, 5:00:00 AM UTC
Available inRUENPage between verses with
The third part begins, and it consists entirely of a list of questions: thirty-odd, one after another, without answer. This structure deserves noting, for it is deliberate. The answers will be given in the fourth part, word for word in the same order. That is, before us is a questioner and an answerer, deliberately separated.
This device has a purpose in oral literature: a listener, hearing the questions in a row, gets time to think; and the answers, when they come, fall into a prepared place. Let us say also about the subject of the questions. All the participants and all the requisites of a Vedic sacrifice are listed — the sacrificer, his wife, the sixteen priests, the onlookers, the post, the cord, the vessels, the animal.
This is a whole inventory of the rite, and by it alone one can judge how complex it was: the priests alone number sixteen, each with his own office and his own name. The Vaiṣṇava side does not hold to such complexity, and it is worth saying what it replaced it with. Its chief rite — singing — requires not a single priest: everyone sings. There are no offices in it, and so no question of who is who.
Let us add what follows from this. A rite with sixteen priests divides those gathered into performers and onlookers; a rite in which everyone sings knows no such distinction. And the whole difference between a temple and a community lies, to my mind, in this one detail.