Samaveda

Dating and historical context

Michael Witzel states that there is no absolute dating for Samaveda and other Vedic texts.

There were about a dozen styles of Samavedic chanting. Of the three surviving versions, the Jaiminiya preserves the oldest surviving tradition of Samavedic chanting.

Text

The Samaveda is the Veda of Chants, or "storehouse of knowledge of chants". According to Frits Staal, it is "the Rigveda set to music". It is a fusion of older melodies (sāman) and the Rig verses. but Samaveda is textually larger because it lists all the chant- and rituals-related score modifications of the verses.

The Samaveda text contains notated melodies, and these are probably the world's oldest surviving ones.

Recensions

R. T. H. Griffith says that there are three recensions of the text of the Samaveda Samhita:

• the Kauthuma recension is current in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, and for a few decades in Darbhanga, Bihar,
• the in the Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gokarna, a few parts of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh,
• and the Jaiminiya in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Organization

The Samaveda comprises two major parts. The first part includes four melody collections and the second part three verse "books" .

Just as in the Rigveda, the early sections of Samaveda typically begin with Agni and Indra hymns but shift to abstract speculations and philosophy, and their meters shift as well, in a descending order. The later sections of the Samaveda, states Witzel, have the least deviation from substance of hymns they derive from Rigveda into songs. The purpose of the Samaveda was liturgical, and it was the repertoire of the ** or "singer" priests.

The Samaveda, like other Vedas, contains several layers of text, with the Samhita being the oldest and the Upanishads the youngest layer.

Analytics

The Samaveda consists of 1,549 unique verses, taken almost entirely from the Rigveda, except for 75 verses. The largest number of verses comes from Books 9 and 8 of the Rigveda. Some of the Rigvedic verses are repeated more than once. Including these repetitions, there are 1,875 verses in total numbered in the Samaveda recension translated by Griffith.

Contents

The Samaveda Samhita is not meant to be read as a text, it is like a musical score sheet that must be heard.

Staal states that the melodies likely existed before the verses in ancient India, and the words of the Rigveda verses were mapped onto those pre-existing melodies, because some early words fit and flow, while later words do not quite fit the melody in the same verse. Some verses add in meaningless sounds of a lullaby, for probably the same reason, remarks Staal. Thus the contents of the Samaveda represent a tradition and a creative synthesis of music, sounds, meaning, and spirituality; the text was not entirely a sudden inspiration.

The portion of the first song of Samaveda illustrates the link and mapping of Rigvedic verses onto a melodic chant:

अग्न आ याहि वीतये – Rigveda 6.16.10 Agna ā yāhi vītaye

Samaveda transformation (Jaiminiya manuscript): o gnā i / ā yā hi vā i / tā yā i tā yā i /

Translation: O Agni, come to the feast. |Samaveda 1.1.1|Translated by Frits Staal

Upanishads

Two primary Upanishads of Hinduism are embedded inside the Samaveda – the Chandogya Upanishad and the Kena Upanishad. Both are notable for the lifting metric melodic structure, but it is the Chandogya which has played a historic role in the evolution of various schools of Hindu philosophy. The embedded philosophical premises in the Chandogya Upanishad have, for example, served as foundation for the Vedanta school of Hinduism. It is one of the most cited texts in later Bhasyas (reviews and commentaries) by scholars from the various schools of Hinduism. Adi Shankara, for example, cited the Chandogya Upanishad 810 times in his Vedanta Sutra Bhasya, more than any other ancient text.

Chandogya Upanishad

Main article: Chandogya Upanishad

The Chandogya Upanishad belongs to the Tandya school of the Samaveda. The precise chronology of the Chandogya Upanishad is uncertain, but it is the youngest layer of text in the Samaveda, and it is variously dated to have been composed by the 8th to 6th centuries BCE in India.

The Chandogya text combines a metric, melodic structure with a wide range of speculations and philosophical topics. The eighth and ninth chapters of the first book, for example, describe a debate between three men proficient in Udgitha, about the origins and support of Udgitha. The text summarizes their discussion as,

What is the origin of this world? Space, said he. Verily, all things here arise out of space. They disappear back into space, for space alone is greater than these, space is the final goal. This is the most excellent Udgitha. This is endless. The most excellent is his, the most excellent worlds does he win, who, knowing it thus, reveres the most excellent Udgitha (Om, ). |Chandogya Upanishad 1.9.1-1.9.2}}

Max Muller notes that the term "space" above, was later asserted in the Vedanta Sutra verse 1.1.22 to be a symbolic of the Vedic concept of Brahman. The text discusses Dharma and many other topics:

There are three branches of Dharma (righteous life, duty): Yajna (sacrifice), Svādhyāya (self study) and Dāna (charity) are the first, Tapas (austerity, meditation) is the second, while dwelling as a Brahmacharya for education in the house of a teacher is the third, All three achieve the blessed worlds. But the Brahmasamstha – one who is firmly grounded in Brahman – alone achieves immortality. |Chandogya Upanishad 2.23.1}}

Kena Upanishad

Main article: Kena Upanishad

The Kena Upanishad is embedded inside the last section of the Talavakara Brahmanam recension of the Samaveda. It is much shorter, but it too delves into philosophical and spiritual questions like the Chandogya Upanishad. In the fourth chapter, the Kena Upanishad states, for example, that all beings have an innate longing for spiritual knowledge, for self-awareness. This knowledge of Atman-Brahman is Tadvanam (transcendental happiness, blissfulness). In its final paragraphs, the Kena Upanishad asserts ethical life as the foundation of self-knowledge and of Atman-Brahman.

Tapas, Damah, Work - these are the foundations, the Vedas are the limbs of the same, the Truth is its fulcrum. |Kena Upanishad, 4.8 (paragraph 33)}}

Manuscripts and translations

The Kauthuma recension has been published (Samhita, Brahmana, Shrautasutra and ancillary Sutras, mainly by B.R. Sharma), parts of the Jaiminiya tradition remain unpublished. There is an edition of the first part of the Samhita by W. Caland and of the Brahmana by Raghu Vira and Lokesh Chandra, as well as the neglected Upanishad, but only parts of the Shrautasutra. The song books remain unpublished.

A German edition of Samaveda was published in 1848 by Theodor Benfey, and Satyavrata Samashrami published an edited Sanskrit version in 1873. A Russian translation was published by Filipp Fortunatov in 1875. An English translation was published by Ralph Griffith in 1893. A translation in Hindi by Mridul Kirti called "Samveda Ka Hindi Padyanuvad" has also been published recently.

The Samaveda text has not received as much attention as the Rigveda, because outside of the musical novelty and melodic creativity, the substance of all but 75 verses of the text have predominantly been derived from the Rigveda. A study of Rigveda suffices.

Cultural influence

The Indian classical music and dance, states Guy Beck, is rooted in the sonic and musical dimensions of the Sama Veda, along with the Upanishads and Agamas. The structure and theory of chants in the Samaveda have inspired the organizing principle for Indian classical arts and performances, and this root has been widely acknowledged by musicologists dealing with the history of Indian music.

Our music tradition [Indian] in the North as well as in the South, remembers and cherishes its origin in the Samaveda... the musical version of the Rigveda. |V. Raghavan|}}

References

Sources

References

1. "Construction of the Vedas".
2. Patrick Olivelle (2014), The Early Upanishads, Oxford University Press; ISBN 978-0195124354, pp. 12-13
3. Vyasa, Ved. "Bhagavad Gita 10.22 - Chapter 10 Verse 22 in Hindi & English".
4. John Stevenson, {{Google books. Q8VVAAAAcAAJ. Translation of the Sanhita of the Sama Veda
5. 0-631215352, pages 68-70
6. Bruno Nettl, Ruth M. Stone, James Porter and Timothy Rice (1999), The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Routledge, {{ISBN. 978-0824049461, pages 242-245
7. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, {{ISBN. 978-0143099864, page xvi-xvii, Quote: "The Vedas are an Oral Tradition and that applies especially to two of the four: the Veda of the Verse (Rigveda) and the Veda of Chants (Samaveda). (...) The Vedas are not a religion in any of the many senses of that widespread term. They have always been regarded as storehouses of knowledge, that is: ''veda''."
8. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, {{ISBN. 978-0143099864, pages 4-5
9. 5D4TAAAAYAAJ. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 7, Harvard Divinity School, TT Clark, pages 51-56
10. The musical notation is written usually immediately above, sometimes within, the line of Samaveda text, either in syllabic or a numerical form depending on the Samavedic ''Sakha'' (school).KR Norman (1979), Sāmavedic Chant by Wayne Howard (Book Review), Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, page 524;
    Wayne Howard (1977), Samavedic Chant, Yale University Press, {{ISBN. 978-0300019568
11. Griffith, R. T. H. ''The {{IAST. Sāmaveda Saṃhitā'', {{ISBN. 978-1419125096, page vi
12. 978-0872498556, page 230 note 85
13. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, {{ISBN. 978-0143099864, pages 80, 74-81
14. [[Michael Witzel]] (1997), "[http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/canon.pdf The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political Milieu]" in ''Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts: New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas'', Harvard University Press, pages = 269-270
15. Axel Michaels (2004), Hinduism: Past and Present, Princeton University Press, {{ISBN. 0-691-08953-1, page 51
16. Michael Witzel (2003), "Vedas and Upaniṣads", in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Editor: Gavin Flood), Blackwell, {{ISBN. 0-631215352, page 76
17. For 1875 total verses, see numbering given in Ralph T. H. Griffith. Griffith's introduction mentions the recension history for his text. Repetitions may be found by consulting the cross-index in Griffith pp. 491-99.
18. Frits Staal (2009), Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin, {{ISBN. 978-0143099864, pages 107-112
19. The text uses creative structures, called ''Stobha'', to help embellish, transform or play with the words so that they better fit into a desired musical harmony.R Simon and JM van der Hoogt, [http://www.ibiblio.org/guruguha/MusicResearchLibrary/Books-English/BkE-Faddegon-StudiesOnTheSamaveda-1951-0022.pdf Studies on the Samaveda] North Holland Publishing Company, pages 47-54, 61-67
20. Frits Staal (1996), Ritual and Mantras, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814127, pages 209-221
21. Guy Beck (1993), Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound, University of South Carolina Press, {{ISBN. 978-0872498556, pages 107-109
22. [https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/ऋग्वेद:_सूक्तं_६.१६ ६.१६ ॥१०॥] Wikisource, Rigveda 6.16.10;
    Sanskrit:
    '''अग्न आ याहि वीतये''' गृणानो हव्यदातये ।
    नि होता सत्सि बर्हिषि ॥१०॥
23. Max Muller, [https://archive.org/stream/upanishads01ml#page/n93/mode/2up Chandogya Upanishad], The Upanishads, Part I, Oxford University Press, pages LXXXVI-LXXXIX, 1-144 with footnotes
24. Paul Deussen, The System of Vedanta, {{ISBN. 978-1432504946, pages 30-31
25. 978-0195124354, page 166-169
26. Patrick Olivelle (2014), The Early Upanishads, Oxford University Press, {{ISBN. 978-0195124354, page 12-13
27. Stephen Phillips (2009), Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy, Columbia University Press, {{ISBN. 978-0231144858, Chapter 1
28. Robert Hume, [https://archive.org/stream/thirteenprincipa028442mbp#page/n205/mode/2up Chandogya Upanishad] 1.8.7 - 1.8.8, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, Oxford University Press, pages 185-186
29. Max Muller, [https://archive.org/stream/upanishads01ml#page/n127/mode/2up Chandogya Upanishad 1.9.1], The Upanishads, Part I, Oxford University Press, page 17 with footnote 1
30. Paul Deussen explains the term ''Brahman'' means the "creative principle which lies realized in the whole world".Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814684, page 91
31. [https://archive.org/stream/Shankara.Bhashya-Chandogya.Upanishad-Ganganath.Jha.1942.English#page/n117/mode/2up Chandogya Upanishad with Shankara Bhashya] Ganganath Jha (Translator), pages 103-116
32. Max Muller, [https://archive.org/stream/upanishads01ml#page/34/mode/2up Chandogya Upanishad Twenty Third Khanda], The Upanishads, Part I, Oxford University Press, page 35 with footnote
33. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814684, pages 97-98 with preface and footnotes
34. Johnston, Charles (1920-1931), The Mukhya Upanishads, Kshetra Books, {{ISBN. 9781495946530 (Reprinted in 2014)
35. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814684, pages 207-213
36. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814684, page 208
37. [https://archive.org/stream/kena-upanishad00xxxxuoft#page/31/mode/2up Kena Upanishad] Mantra 6, G Prasadji (Translator), pages 32-33
38. Meditation, Penance, Inner heat, See: WO Kaelber (1976), "Tapas", Birth, and Spiritual Rebirth in the Veda, History of Religions, 15(4), pages 343-386
39. Self-restraint, see: M Heim (2005), Differentiations in Hindu ethics, in William Schweiker (Editor), The Blackwell companion to religious ethics, {{ISBN. 0631216340, pages 341-354
40. Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Volume 1, Motilal Banarsidass, {{ISBN. 978-8120814684, pages 211-213
41. A. Parpola. The literature and study of the Jaiminīya Sāmaveda. In retrospect and prospect. Studia Orientalia XLIII:6. Helsinki 1973
42. W. Caland, Die Jaiminīya-Saṃhitā mit einer Einleitung über die Sāmaveda-literatur. Breslau 1907
43. Raghu Vira and Lokesh Chandra. 1954. Jaiminīya-Brāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda. (Sarasvati-Vihara Series 31.) Nagpur. 2nd revised ed., Delhi 1986
44. H. Oertel. The Jaiminīya or Talavakāra Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa. Text, translation, and notes. JAOS 16,1895, 79–260
45. A. Parpola. The decipherment of the Samavedic notation of the Jaiminīyas. Finnish Oriental Society 1988
46. Theodor Benfey, [https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_0C_oEB7TkVgC#page/n3/mode/2up Die Hymnen des Samaveda] FA Brockhaus, Leipzig
47. Satyavrata Samashrami, {{Google books. i9dRAAAAcAAJ. Sama Veda Sanhita
48. издание, дореволюционное. (1875). "Русский: Фортунатов Ф Ф Самаведа Араняка Самхита 1875.pdf".
49. Griffith, Ralph T. H. ''The {{IAST. Sāmaveda Saṃhitā''. Text, Translation, Commentary & Notes in English. Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith. First published 1893; Revised and enlarged edition, enlarged by Nag Sharan Singh and Surendra Pratap, 1991 (Nag Publishers: Delhi, 1991) {{ISBN. 81-7081-244-5; This edition provides the text in [[Devanagari]] with full metrical marks needed for chanting.
50. SW Jamison and M Witzel (1992), [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vedica.pdf Vedic Hinduism], Harvard University, page 8
51. 978-9004094673, pages 141-158
52. Guy Beck (1993), Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound, University of South Carolina Press, {{ISBN. 978-0872498556, pages 107-108