Vedic Priesthood
Priests of the Vedic religion are officiants of the yajna service. As persons trained for the ritual and proficient in its practice, they were called ṛtvij ("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 ṛtvijas became the custom for major ceremonies. The sixteen consisted of four chief priests and their assistants.
Read more about Vedic Priesthood: Chief Priests, Assistants, Philological Comparisons
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“The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognised as love at all.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)