Aitareya Brahmana
The Aitareya Brahmana () is the Brahmana of the Shakala Shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns. This work, according to the tradition, is ascribed to Mahidasa Aitareya. Authorship. Sayana of Vijayanagara, a 14th century commentator, attributes the entire "Aitareya Brahmana" to a single man: Mahidasa Aitareya. In his introduction to the text, Sayana suggests that "Aitareya" is a matronymic name. Mahidasa's mother was "Itaraa" (इतरा), whose name is derived from the Sanskrit word "itara" (इतर, literally "the other" or "rejected"). She was one of the wives of a great rishi (sage). The rishi  preferred sons from his other wives over Mahidasa. Once he placed all his other sons on his lap, but ignored Mahidasa. On seeing tears in the eyes of her son, Itara prayed to the earth goddess Bhūmi, her kuladevi (tutelary deity). Bhūmi then appeared and gifted Mahidasa the knowledge contained in the "Aitareya Brahmana". Mahidasa is mentioned in other works before Sayana, such as the "Chandogya Upanishad" (3.16.7) and the "Aitareya Aranyaka" (2.1.7, 3.8). But none of these works mention Sayana's legend. The "Aitareya Aranyaka" is undoubtedly a composite work, and it is possible that the "Aitareya Brahmana" also  had multiple authors. According to AB Keith, the present redaction of the work may be ascribed to Mahidasa, but even that cannot be said conclusively. Identification with Asvalayana Brahmana. The "Asvalayana Srautasutra" and "Asvalayana Grhyasutra", attributed to the sage Asvalayana, are the srautasutra and grhyasutra associated with the "Aitareya Brahmana". Some Sanskrit texts also mention a text called "Asvalayana Brahmana". For example, Raghunandana (c. 16th century CE), in his "Malamasatattva", quotes a verse from what he calls the "Asvalayana Brahmana". The verse is a slight variation of an "Aitareya Brahmana" verse. The common view is that the "Asvalayana Brahmana  is simply another name for the Aitareya Brahmana". However, according to another theory, it might be a now-lost, similar but distinct Brahmana text. Date of composition. The "Aitareya Brahmana" with some certainty dates to the 1st millennium BCE, likely to its first half. Published estimates include the following: Contents. Forty "adhyaya"s (chapters) of this work are grouped under eight "pañcikā"s (group of five). The following is an overview of its contents: Astronomy played a significant role in Vedic rituals, which were conducted at different periods of a year. The "Aitareya Brahmana" (4.18) states the sun stays still for a  period of 21 days, and reaches its highest point on "vishuvant", the middle day of this period. The gods feared that at this point, the sun would lose its balance, so they tied it with five ropes (the five "ropes" being five prayer verses). The "vishuvant" is mentioned as an important day for rituals. The text also mentions that the sun burns with the greatest force after passing the meridian. Cosmography. The "Aitareya Brahmana" (2.7) states: According to Subhash Kak, this implies that according to the author of the verse, the sun does not move and it is the earth  that moves, suggesting heliocentrism and rotation of a spherical Earth. According to Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta, this verse implies that the author "clearly understood that days and nights were local rather than a global phenomenon". Das Gupta adds that the text's interest in the sun's position appears to be "purely ritualistic", and the verse cannot be conclusively taken as an evidence of the author's recognition of the earth as a sphere. According to K. C. Chattopadhyaya, the verse simply implies that the sun has two sides: one bright and the other dark. In section 3.44, among  other things, the Aitareya Brahmana states (translation by Haug): Aitareya Brahmana being a Vedic corpus text and scripture in Hinduism, and the lack of any Mount Meru theories in that text, the medieval era commentators such as Sayana had significant difficulty in reconciling the Vedic era and medieval era cosmographic theories. The medieval era Indian scholars kept the spherical and disc shape cosmography in the Puranas, while the astronomy (Siddhanta) texts for time keeping assumed the spherical assumptions. In linguistics. "The king and the god" is a text based on the "king Harishcandra" episode (7.14 … 33.2) of Aitareya Brahmana. It  has been used to compare different reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European language.