Taittiriya

Taittiriya refers to a branch of the Krishna Yajurveda, named after the ancient sage Taittiriya. It designates a Vedic school and the corpus associated with that school, including the Taittiriya Samhita, the Taittiriya Brahmana, the Taittiriya Aranyaka, and the Taittiriya Upanishad.

The Samhita contains liturgical mantras used in sacrifices, the Brahmana outlines ritual procedures and explanations, and the Aranyaka offers philosophical reflections suitable for forest-dwelling hermits. The Taittiriya Upanishad, part of this tradition, is especially noted for teaching the five koshas, or sheaths, of the self.

Historically, the Taittiriya branch emerged in the late Vedic period as one of the textual streams of the Yajurveda. It exists in multiple recensions and manuscripts, and has been the subject of traditional and modern scholarship in Indology and Vedic studies.

Related topics include the Yajurveda as a whole, other shakhas of the Yajurveda, and the Vedantic ideas developed in the Upanishads. The Taittiriya corpus is studied for its liturgical significance within Vedic ritual practice as well as its philosophical contributions to classical Indian thought, particularly in its treatment of self, consciousness, and knowledge.