A member of the highest priestly caste in ancient India's Hindu social system, responsible for performing rituals and religious ceremonies.
From Sanskrit 'brāhmaṇa', derived from 'brahman' (the ultimate reality in Hinduism) plus the agent suffix '-a'. The word evolved from describing priests who mediated between the divine and human realms to becoming a hereditary social class designation.
The Brahmanas were so concerned with preserving rituals perfectly that they memorized thousands of sacred texts orally for over 3,000 years—the Rigveda is still recited identically today as it was in ancient times, making it one of humanity's oldest continuously preserved texts.
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