- “The AV practitioners are associated with the role of the Brahman but in reality have their own parallel śrauta tradition.” - (MT)
- “While the YV and SV texts as we have them today clearly postdate and presuppose the core RV, we know from the internal evidence of the RV that there were already YV and SV practitioners alongside the composers of the RV. E.g.: udgāteva śakune sāma gāyasi : You O bird sing a sāman like the udgātṛ. tvam adhvaryur uta hotāsi pūrvyaḥ praśāstā potā januṣā purohitaḥ | : You (Agni) are the adhvaryu, the primal hotṛ, the praśastṛ (an assistant of the hotṛ who is also known as the upavaktṛ or the maitrāvaruṇa who plays a special role in recitations to those two gods), the potṛ (the assistant of the Brahman who specializes in prāyaścitta-s) and from birth the purohita. Further, the parallel in the Zoroastrian tradition suggest that at least the hotṛ, the adhvaryu and some version of the brahman go back to the proto-Indo-Iranian period.”
- “While these ṛtvik-s function in unison in the śrauta rituals their mantra collections and activities suggest that they originally represented alternative ritual traditions within the early Indo-European fold, which were brought together under a single framework by at least the proto-Indo-Iranian period. While under a common framework they clearly maintained their own parallel traditions, techniques of composition and ritual principles. "
- “What happened was the rise to dominance of the ādhvaryava tradition in the Indo-Aryan śrauta ritual. Conversely, it is conceivable that on the Iranian side the hautraka tradition dominated, at least in early Zoroastrianism where Zarathustra calls himself the cognate zaotar.”