Abstract
The institutionalisation of the Vedic śrauta fire ritual in ancient India was strictly connected with the priest class’s establishment of a systematic theory of ritual. However, the pivot of ritualists’ reflections turned out to be not the gods receiving the fire oblations but the human being. As Taittirīya Saṃhitā states: man is commensurate with the sacrifice (TS.5.2.5). The first activity just after fixing the proper area for conducting the Vedic ritual was taking the sacrificer’s measurements. Then, using the units of measure modelled on the dimensions of man, the ritual enclosure was meted out and built. The origin of the mentioned procedure of taking human dimensions as units of measure can be traced to the Vedic passage of Taittirīya Saṃhitā: with man’s measure he metes out (TS.5.2.5). The constructed ritual enclosure therefore belonged to the sacrificer in a strict sense – it was his altar
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