Sāmaveda
सामवेद
Also written: samaveda · sama veda · origin of indian music · vedic music
Of the Sāmaveda's 1,875 verses, all but about 75 are drawn from the Ṛgveda. What is new is not the words but the singing of them — and that is the entire point. The Sāmaveda is the transformation of speech into music.
The birth of Indian music
Sāmagāna uses seven notes and a defined system of pitch, duration, ornament and pause. The names of the notes, the concept of the octave, the practice of holding and bending a tone — the whole architecture of Indian classical music descends from this recitation. The Gāndharvaveda, the Upaveda of music, is attached to the Sāmaveda for this reason.
वेदानां सामवेदोऽस्मि।
vedānāṁ sāma-vedo'smi
Among the Vedas I am the Sāmaveda.
What it carries
- The Chāndogya Upaniṣad — 'tat tvam asi', the dialogue of Śvetaketu and his father, the teaching on Om.
- The Kena Upaniṣad — 'by whom is the mind sent forth?'
- The Jaiminīya and Pañcaviṁśa Brāhmaṇas.
- The Ārcika and Gāna divisions — the verses, and the melodies to which they are sung.
The sources of knowledge in Sanātana Dharma
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Śruti — that which was heard
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Smṛti — that which was remembered
The vast human-authored body: Vedāṅga, Itihāsa, Purāṇa, Dharma Śāstra, Sūtra, Darśana, Āgama and Kāvya — deriv…
Nigama and Āgama — the two revealed streams
The Vedic and the Tantric revelations: their different forms, their different eligibility rules, why every tem…
The four Vedas
Ṛgveda, Yajurveda, Sāmaveda and Atharvaveda — what each contains, the priest each belongs to, its śākhās, and …
Ṛgveda
The oldest surviving text of the tradition: 1,028 hymns in ten maṇḍalas, its structure, its great hymns, and w…
Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.