Шраута: Ведические ритуалы и их влияние в Азии

Sanskrit word that means "belonging to śruti"

Śrauta is a Sanskrit word that means "belonging to śruti", that is, anything based on the Vedas of Hinduism. Klostermaier concurs, stating that the prefix means "belonging to śruti", and includes ceremonies and texts related to śruti. The word is sometimes spelled shrauta in scholarly literature.

Spread via Indian religions, homa traditions are found all across Asia, from Samarkand to Japan, over a 3000 year history. A homa, in all its Asian variations, is a ceremonial ritual that offers food to fire and is ultimately descended from the Vedic religion. Yajna or vedic fire sacrifice ritual, in Indian context, became a distinct feature of the early śruti (Vedic) rituals. The Vedic ritual consisted of sacrificial offerings of something edible or drinkable, such as milk, clarified butter, yoghurt, rice, barley, an animal, or anything of value, offered to the gods with the assistance of fire priests. Śrauta "fire ritual" practices were copied by different Buddhist and Jain traditions, states Phyllis Granoff, with their texts appropriating the "ritual eclecticism" of Hindu traditions, albeit with variations that evolved through the medieval times. The homa style Vedic sacrifice ritual, states Musashi Tachikawa, was absorbed into Mahayana Buddhism and homa rituals continue to be performed in some Buddhist traditions in Tibet, China and Japan.

The Śrautasūtras form a part of the corpus of Sanskrit sutra literature. Their topics include instructions relating to the use of the śruti corpus in great rituals and the correct performance of these major vedic ceremonies, are same as those found in the Brahmana layers of the Vedas, but presented in more systematic and detailed manner. Baudhayana srautasutra is probably the oldest text in the śrautasūtra genre, and includes in its appendix a paribhāṣāsūtra (definitions, glossary section). Other texts such as the early Apastamba śrautasūtra and later composed Katyayana start with Paribhasa sutra section. The śulbasūtras or śulvasūtras are appendices in the śrautasūtras and deal with the mathematical methodology to construct geometries for the vedi (Vedic altar). The Sanskrit word śulba means "cord", and these texts are "rules of the cord". They provide, states Kim Plofker, what in modern mathematical terminology would be called "area preserving transformations of plane figures", tersely describing geometric formulae and constants. Five śulbasutras have survived through history, of which the oldest surviving is likely the Baudhayāna śulbasūtra (800–500 BCE), while the one by Kātyāyana may be chronologically the youngest (≈300 BCE).

The Śrauta rituals varied in complexity. The first step of a Śrauta ritual was making of an altar, then the initiation of fire, next of Havir yajnas recitations, then offering of milk or drinkable liquid drops into the fire, then prayers all with mantras. More complex Śrauta rituals were based on moon's cycle (Darshapurnamasa) and the seasonal rituals. According to Witzel, "the Pasubandha or “Animal Sacrifice” is also integrated into the Soma ritual, and involves the killing of an animal." The killing was considered inauspicious, and "bloodless" suffocation of the animal outside the offering grounds was practiced. The killing was viewed as a form of evil and pollution (papa, agha, enas), and reforms were introduced to avoid this evil in late/post Rigvedic times. According to Timothy Lubin, the substitution of animal sacrifice in Śrauta ritual with shaped dough (pistapasu) or pots of ghee (ajyapasu) has been practiced for at least 600 years, although such a substitution is not condoned in Śrauta ritual texts. The discussions about substituting animal sacrifice with vegetarian offering, states Usha Grover, appear in section 1.2.3 of the Shatapatha Brahmana of the Yajurveda. This section, states Grover, presents the progressive change in the material offered to gods during a Śrauta ritual.

According to Alexis Sanderson, Śrauta ceremonies declined from the fifth to the thirteenth century CE. This period saw a shift from Śrauta sacrifices to charitable grant of gifts such as giving cows, land, issuing endowments to build temples and sattrani (feeding houses), and water tanks as part of religious ceremonies.

Most Śrauta rituals are rarely performed in the modern era. Some Śrauta traditions have been observed and studied by scholars, as in the rural parts of Andhra Pradesh, and elsewhere in India and Nepal. Śrauta traditions from Coastal Andhra have been reported by David Knipe, and an elaborate śrauta ceremony was video recorded in Kerala by Frits Staal in 1975. According to Axel Michaels, the homa sacrifice rituals found in modern Hindu and Buddhist contexts evolved as a simpler version of the Vedic Śrauta ritual. Women reciting mantras at śrauta ceremonies of Hinduism from ancient times have been suggested by a number of scholars such as Mary McGee, Stephanie Jamison, Katherine Young, and Laurie Patton.

The Ashvamedha and Rajasuya are not practiced anymore. There is doubt the Purushamedha, a human sacrifice, was ever performed.

The Śrauta rituals were complex and expensive, states Robert Bellah, and "we should not forget that the rites were created for royalty and nobility". A Brahmin, adds Bellah, would need to be very rich to sponsor and incur the expense of an elaborate Śrauta rite. The Upanishads, states Brian Smith, were a movement towards the demise of the Śrauta style social rituals and the worldview these rites represented. The Upanishadic doctrines were not a culmination, but a destruction of Vedic ritualism. This had a lasting influence on the Indian religions that gained prominence in the 1st millennium BCE, not only in terms of the Vedanta and other schools of Hindu philosophy that emerged, but also in terms of Buddhist and Jaina influence among the royal class of the ancient Indian society. With time, scholars of ancient India composed Upanishads, such as the Pranagnihotra Upanishad, that evolved the focus from external rituals to self knowledge and to inner rituals within man. The Pranagnihotra is, states Henk Bodewitz, an internalized direct private ritual that substituted external public Agnihotra ritual (a srauta rite). This evolution hinged on the Vedic idea of devas (gods) referring to the sense organs within one's body, and that the human body is the temple of Brahman, the metaphysical unchanging reality. This principle is found in many Upanishads, including the Pranagnihotra Upanishad, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad section 2.2, Kaushitaki Upanishad sections 1.4 and 2.1–2.5, Prasna Upanishad chapter 2, and others. Bodewitz states that this reflects the stage in ancient Indian thought where "the self or the person as a totality became central, with the self or soul as the manifestation of the highest principle or god". The Śrauta Agnihotra sacrifice thus evolved into Prana Agnihotra sacrifice concept. Heesterman describes the pranagnihotra sacrifice as one where the practitioner performs the sacrifice with food and his own body as the temple, without any outside help or reciprocity, and this ritual allows the Hindu to "stay in the society while maintaining his independence from it", its simplicity thus marks the "end station of Vedic ritualism".