ritual
यज्ञ yajña
yajña
root √yaj — to worship, sacrifice, offer
A Vedic ritual offering — typically into fire — that structures the relationship between humans, gods, and the cosmic order.
A yajña is the central act of Vedic ritual life: an offering, usually into fire, accompanied by mantras, that maintains the order of the cosmos. The Mahābhārata is dense with yajñas — the rājasūya (royal consecration), the aśvamedha (horse-sacrifice), the sarpa-sattra (snake-sacrifice at which Vaiśampāyana first recited the epic), the long satra of the rishis at Naimiṣa during which Sauti recites again.
The ritual is more than worship. It is constitutive: a king who performs the rājasūya becomes a sovereign by the act of performing it; a horse-sacrifice claims territory at the scale of where the horse has roamed. Yajñas have outcomes whether or not they are performed for spiritual purposes.
Read the epic’s many yajñas as plot mechanisms, not religious furniture.