Gargya Narayana

A shakha (Sanskrit , "branch" or "limb"), is a Hindu theological school that specializes in learning certain Vedic texts, or else the traditional texts followed by such a school. An individual follower of a particular school or recension is called a śākhin. The term is also used in Hindu philosophy to refer to an adherent of a particular orthodox system.

A related term caraṇa, ("conduct of life" or "behavior") is also used to refer to such a Vedic school: "although the words caraṇa and śākhā are sometimes used synonymously, yet caraṇa properly applies to the sect or collection of persons united in one school, and śākhā to the traditional text followed, as in the phrase śākhām adhite, ("he recites a particular version of the Veda")". The schools have different points of view, described as "difference of (Vedic) school" (śākhābhedaḥ). Each school would learn a specific Vedic Saṃhita (one of the "four Vedas" properly so-called), as well as its associated Brahmana, Aranyakas, Shrautasutras, Grhyasutras and Upanishads.

In traditional Hindu society affiliation with a specific school is an important aspect of class identity. By the end of the Rig Vedic period the term Brāhmaṇa had come to be applied to all members of the priestly class, but there were subdivisions within this order based both on caste and on the shakha (branch) with which they were affiliated. A Brāhmaṇa who changed school would be called "a traitor to his śākhā" (śākhāraṇḍaḥ).

The traditional source of information on the shakhas of each Veda is the Caraṇa-vyūha, of which two, mostly similar, versions exist: the 49th pariśiṣṭa of the Atharvaveda, ascribed to Shaunaka, and the 5th pariśiṣṭa of the Śukla (White) Yajurveda, ascribed to Kātyāyana. These have lists of the numbers of recensions that were believed to have once existed as well as those still extant at the time the works were compiled. Only a small number of recensions have survived.

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