Camakam, anuvāka 10 — the herd by age, and the breaths by name
The popular claimCalves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, bulls, cows — and then breath, out-breath, sight, hearing, mind, speech, self, sacrifice: each "made fit by the sacrifice".
The tenth anuvāka is the one a herdsman would recognise, as the fourth was the farmer's and the eighth the priest's. And it ends where the first anuvāka began — inside the person — with the verb on every clause.
The herd
Garbhāś ca me vatsāś ca me. — Embryos, and calves. Garbha — the unborn; vatsa — the calf.
Tryaviś ca me tryavī ca me. — The eighteen-month-old male, and the female. Tryavi — Sāyaṇa: a calf of three half-years; the masculine and the feminine, each asked for.
Dityavāṭ ca me dityauhī ca me. — The two-year-old male, and the female. Dityavāh — a bull-calf of two years; dityauhī — the heifer.
Pañcāviś ca me pañcāvī ca me. — The two-and-a-half-year-old male, and the female. Pañcāvi — of five half-years.
Trivatsaś ca me trivatsā ca me. — The three-year-old male, and the female.
Turyavāṭ ca me turyauhī ca me. — The four-year-old male, and the female. Turyavāh — the fourth-year bull.
Paṣṭhavāṭ ca me paṣṭhauhī ca me. — The full-grown male, and the female. Paṣṭhavāh — Sāyaṇa: the bull in its prime, past the fourth year.
Ukṣā ca me vaśā ca me. — The bull, and the barren cow. Ukṣan — the breeding bull; vaśā — the cow that does not calve, which was the animal most often sacrificed.
Ṛṣabhaś ca me vehac ca me. — The stud bull, and the cow that miscarries. Ṛṣabha — the chief bull of the herd; vehat — a cow whose calf does not come to term.
Anaḍvāñ ca me dhenuś ca me. — The draught ox, and the milch cow. Anaḍvāh — the cart-puller; dhenu — the cow in milk. The herd ends with the two animals a household most depended on.
What the census shows
Twenty terms, in pairs by sex, in order of age: the herd of a Vedic household counted the way the household counted it. The Camakam asks for every age of cattle, including the barren and the miscarrying, because a herd has them and the petition is for the herd as it is. A reader who wants the Vedic vocabulary of cattle-keeping has it here.
The faculties, with the verb
Āyur yajñena kalpatām. — May life be made fit by the sacrifice.
Prāṇo yajñena kalpatām. — May breath be made fit by the sacrifice.
Apāno yajñena kalpatām. — May the out-breath be made fit. Apāna — the downward breath.
Vyāno yajñena kalpatām. — May the diffused breath be made fit. Vyāna — the breath that pervades the body. Three of the five prāṇas of the later physiology are here; udāna and samāna are not.
Cakṣur yajñena kalpatām. — May sight be made fit.
Śrotraṁ yajñena kalpatām. — May hearing be made fit.
Mano yajñena kalpatām. — May mind be made fit.
Vāg yajñena kalpatām. — May speech be made fit.
Ātmā yajñena kalpatām. — May the self be made fit.
Yajño yajñena kalpatām. — May the sacrifice be made fit by the sacrifice.
The last clause
Yajño yajñena kalpatām is the Camakam's most-quoted line and its strangest: the sacrifice, made fit by the sacrifice. The commentators read it as the rite perfecting itself — the sacrifice performed now asked to make the sacrifice as such right, without remainder. It is also, structurally, where the petition closes its circle: the first anuvāka asked for speech, mind, eye, ear, self, body; the tenth asks for the same faculties, now with the verb, and then for the rite in which the asking is done.
What this page does not say
It does not claim the five-breath scheme is in the text — three breaths are — and it does not make yajño yajñena kalpatām into a philosophy the text did not state. It opens the twenty cattle terms and the ten verbed clauses so that a reciter who has said anaḍvāñ ca me dhenuś ca me knows he asked for the ox and the cow, and then for himself.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.7.10 (Camakam, tenth anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's commentary on the Camakam
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