--pitri yajna: "Homage to ancestors.

--pitri yajna: "Homage to ancestors." Offering of cakes (pinda) and water to the family line and the progenitors of mankind. --bhuta yajna: "Homage to beings." Placing food-offerings, bali, on the ground, intended for animals, birds, insects, wandering outcastes and beings of the invisible worlds. ("Let him gently place on the ground [food] for dogs, outcastes, svapachas, those diseased from sins, crows and insects" Manu Dharma Shastras 3.92).

--manushya yajna: "Homage to men." Feeding guests and the poor, the homeless and the student. Manushya yajna includes all acts of philanthropy, such as tithing and charity. The Vedic study is performed in the morning. The other four yajnas are performed just before taking one's noon meal.

Manu Dharma Shastras (3.80) states, "Let him worship, according to the rule, the rishis with Veda study, the devas with homa, the pitris with shraddha, men with food, and the bhutas with bali." Mystics warn that all offerings must be tempered in the fires of kundalini through the power of inner yajna to be true and valuable, just as the fire of awareness is needed to indelibly imprint ideas and concepts on one's own akashic window. See: dharma, havana, homa, puja, sacrifice.

Yajnavalkya Smriti: (Sanskrit) A Hindu code of law, one of the Dharma Shastras, regarded second in authority only to the earlier Manu Dharma Shastras. See: Dharma Shastra, smriti. Yajnavalkya Upanishad: (Sanskrit) A metrical rendering of the Jabala Upanishad, which expounds on sannyasa, renunciation of worldly life in the quest for liberation. Yajnopavita: (Sanskrit) "Sacred thread." See: upanayana.

Yajur Veda: (Sanskrit) "Wisdom of sacrificial formulas." One of the four compendia of revelatory texts called Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva).

When used alone, the term Yajur Veda generally refers to this Veda's central and oldest portion--the Samhita, "hymn collection." Of this there are two recensions: 1) the Krishna ("black") Yajur Veda (so-called because the commentary, Brahmana, material is mixed with the hymns); and 2) the Shukla ("white or clear") Yajur Veda (with no commentary among the hymns). The contents of these two recensions are also presented in different order.

The Yajur Veda Samhita is divided into 40 chapters and contains 1,975 stanzas. About 30 percent of the stanzas are drawn from the Rig Veda Samhita (particularly from chapters eight and nine). This Veda is a special collection of hymns to be chanted during yajna.