Priests of the
Vedic religion were officiants of the
yajna service. As persons trained for the ritual and proficient in its practice, they were called
?tvij ("
regularly-
sacrificing"). As members of a social class, they were generically known as
vipra ("
sage") or
kavi ("
seer").
Specialization of roles attended the elaboration and development of the ritual corpus over time. Eventually a full complement of sixteen ?tvijas became the custom for major ceremonies. The sixteen consisted of four chief priests and their assistants, with each of the four chief priests playing a unique role
In the systematic expositions of the shrauta sutras, [1] which date to the fifth or sixth century BCE, the assistants are classified into four groups associated with each of the four chief priests, although the classifications are artificial and in some cases incorrect
This last classification is incorrect, as the formal assistants of the brahman were actually assistants of the hot? and the adhvaryu.
