Within the Yajurvedic tradition, Agniṣṭoma is presented as the basic and archetypal Soma sacrifice, the pattern upon which other Soma rituals are modeled. Its significance is described in terms of securing heaven for the sacrificer, purifying him from sin, and strengthening his alignment with ṛta, the cosmic order. The rite is said to confer long life, prosperity, and spiritual merit, while renewing the bond between humans and the gods through the joint agency of Agni and Soma. In this way, the sacrifice becomes a carefully structured journey of the yajamāna toward divine communion and an inner transformation that is at once personal and cosmic.

The procedure unfolds over several days and is highly formalized. After the selection of the full complement of priests—Hotṛ, Adhvaryu, Udgātṛ, and Brahman, each with their assistants—the sacrificial ground is prepared, including the vedi and the three fires: Gārhapatya, Āhavanīya, and Dakṣiṇāgni. The yajamāna then undergoes dīkṣā, a period of consecration marked by purification, restraint, and the adoption of specific observances that symbolically place him within the “womb” of the sacrifice. During the Upasad days, simple but repeated offerings, especially of ghee, are made to deities such as Agni and Viṣṇu, gradually refining both sacrificer and fires for the central Soma rite.

The heart of Agniṣṭoma is the Sutyā day, on which the Soma plant—ritually procured and treated as a sacred, living presence—is pressed in three savanas: morning, midday, and evening. At each pressing, the stalks are crushed with stones, the juice is filtered and mixed (often with milk), and then offered to deities including Indra, Agni, and Soma, before being ritually consumed by priests and sacrificer. The midday pressing is especially characteristic, defined by the Agniṣṭoma-stoma, a specific pattern of Sāman chants that gives the sacrifice its very name and marks it as the normative Soma rite. Throughout, the Yajurveda provides the prose formulas that accompany each physical act—measuring, cutting, offering, drinking—so that speech and action are bound together in a single sacrificial discipline.

Alongside the Soma offerings, there are ancillary oblations of ghee and cooked food, and, in a full performance, an animal sacrifice (typically a goat) offered in a tightly regulated manner to Agni and Soma. The rite culminates in the Avabhṛtha, a ritual bath that marks the release from the dīkṣā state and the completion of the sacrificial journey, followed by the distribution of food and gifts to the priests. Through this elaborate sequence—consecration, refinement, pressing, offering, and ablution—the Agniṣṭoma is portrayed as both a liturgical prototype and a profound spiritual drama, in which the sacrificer participates in the regeneration of the cosmos and gains a transformed status in relation to the divine.