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Thaitriya Yajur Vedam - Brahmanam - Kataka Mantram

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Can someone give the importance of these mantras...broad meanings (including referrals for a complete translation), the occasions they are used pl...

Oosha ji,

taittireeya yajurveda is the "black" or krishna yajurveda; the other one is "white" or shukla yajurveda. There is a legendary story about why these two opposing yajurvedas - at least "colour-wise"! - originated.

Yajnavalkya studied under his maternal uncle and guru, Vaisampaayana. A brilliant student that he was, Y completed his studies in half the usual time and started assisting his uncle in the vedic yagas. But Y did not always follow the rules and whenever V questioned him, Y had convincing answers citing vedas as authority for his deviations. V at last could not take the transgressions any longer and asked Y to "vomit" whatever he had been taught by V. Y complied and went and did long "tapas" and propitiated the sun god who appeared to Y in the form of a horse-headed human (hayagreeva) and taught him the "shukla yajurveda".

V, knowing that his other disciples would never approach Y in learning and brilliance at any time, turned them into "tittiri" birds (partridges) and asked them to eat up the learning vomitted by Y; the yajurveda so eaten up by tittiri birds came to be known as "taittireeya" or "krishna" yajurveda.

Each veda has a samhita, a braahmana (the manual for using the samhita for yagas and the philosophy behind it) and Aranyaka (comments and interpretations given by sages who took to vaanaprastha).

kaathaka is one branch or version of the krishnayajurveda; it has its own brahmana, grihya sutra, dharmasutra, etc.

To give even "broad meanings" of the mantras will be a very very lengthy post. In a nutshell yajurveda uses portions of the rigveda verses and packs them with/within other mantras for use in various sacrifices or yajnas which were in vogue in those early days of vedic life. The most important yajnas were connected with the so-called divine (?) herb "soma" and its juice, other animal sacrifices like the asvamedha (horse sacrifice) including human sacrifice, etc. These mantras have, in the course of history, been adapted and adopted for the various rituals which we perform today, which are called "samskaaras" as also other religious rites.

Try to download this first part from this url.
 
This Vedam has 1975 verses grouped under 40 chapters known as adhyAyAs .The longest chapter has 117 "verses" and the shortest chapter has 13 "verses ". There are two Yajur samhithAs : Sukla and KrishNa ( White and Black ) samhithAs . The White Yajur Veda samhithA is also known as VajasanEyi -MadhyAndina Sukla Yajur vedam to distinguish it from KrishNa Yajur Veda or Taittiriya SamhithA , which is generally considered to be more close to a BrahmaNA rather than to a Sruthi . Most of the people in AndhrA and Tamil Naadu are KrishNa Yajur Vedins .
The two samhithAs have number of recensions inview of their wide popularity .These variations arose from a variety of textual differences and their applications in Vedic rituals . The two popular recensions of the Sukla Yajur Vedam are : MaadhyAndhina and KaaNva ; the KrishNa Yajur Vedam has three recensions : kAtaka , Kapishtala-Kata and MaithrAyaNee .
 
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