Rishi Tittiri

Tittiri is the teacher after whom the Taittiriya branch of the Krishna Yajurveda is named. Two accounts explain the name, and they do not agree.

The Puranic account is the partridge story. In the Vishnu Purana [III.5] Vaishampayana, a pupil of Vyasa, killed his sister's child by an accidental kick and asked his pupils to perform the penance for him. Yajnavalkya refused, and Vaishampayana told him to give back all he had learned. Yajnavalkya brought up the Yajus texts, stained with blood. The other pupils took the form of partridges (tittiri), picked up the verses, and the texts were called Taittiriya. The Bhagavata Purana [XII.6], the Vayu Purana [61] and the Brahmanda Purana [II.35] tell the same story. In the Vishnu Purana Yajnavalkya then prays to the Sun and receives the Vajasaneyi, or White, Yajurveda.

The other account treats Tittiri as an ordinary teacher. H. H. Wilson notes in his translation that the index (anukramani) of the Black Yajurveda says Vaishampayana taught it to Yaska, who taught it to Tittiri, and that Tittiri became a teacher in his turn. Panini [4.3.102] forms the word Taittiriya from Tittiri, as the name of those who study what Tittiri taught. Wilson takes the partridge story to be a later play on the double sense of the word, since tittiri is both a man's name and the bird. Nothing about Tittiri's own life is preserved beyond his place in this line of teachers.

1. The partridge story: in the Vishnu Purana, Yajnavalkya gives back the Yajus he learned from Vaishampayana, and the other pupils take the form of partridges (tittiri) and pick up the verses; the texts are called Taittiriya from this
2. The Taittiriya school: the Taittiriya Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad are the texts of the school that carries his name, the best known and best preserved branch of the Krishna Yajurveda and the one followed across South India
3. Named by Panini and the Anukramani: Panini (4.3.102) forms Taittiriya from Tittiri as the name of those who study what he taught, and the index of the Black Yajurveda names him as a teacher in the line of Vaishampayana
4. The sutra schools of the Taittiriya: Baudhayana, Apastamba, Hiranyakeshin and Vaikhanasa each composed ritual sutras attached to the Taittiriya Samhita, and these schools still have their texts and followers

The Samhita has seven kandas, the Brahmana three ashtakas, and the Aranyaka ten prapathakas. The last four prapathakas of the Aranyaka are Upanishads: the Taittiriya Upanishad (7 to 9) and the Mahanarayana Upanishad (10). There is also a phonetic treatise, the Taittiriya Pratishakhya. Published estimates put the Taittiriya Brahmana and the attached sutras between about the fifth and first centuries BCE; the dates are estimates and differ by author.

According to a general encyclopedia summary, followers of the Baudhayana and Apastamba sutras are found across South India and in Maharashtra, Hiranyakeshins mainly in the Konkan and western Maharashtra, Vaikhanasas around Tirupati and Chennai, and Vadhulas in Kerala. Exact numbers are not given in any source I found.

• A hermitage with birds gathering around the teacher
• Mount Meru, where the sages' assembly was held in the Vishnu Purana story