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 same words, made into music

The point is best made by looking at the first verse of the Sāmaveda, because it is not a new verse at all.

अग्न आ याहि वीतये गृणानो हव्यदातये। नि होता सत्सि बर्हिषि॥

agna ā yāhi vītaye gṛṇāno havya-dātaye ni hotā satsi barhiṣi

Agni, come to the feast; praised, come to the giving of the offering. Sit down as hotṛ upon the sacred grass.

— Sāmaveda 1.1.1 (= Ṛgveda 6.16.10)

Word for word, it is Ṛgveda 6.16.10. What the Sāmaveda adds is invisible on the page: the stobhas — inserted syllables such as hā u, ho vā, i ḍā, which carry no lexical meaning at all and exist purely to hold the melody; the lengthening and bending of vowels across several counts; and the arrangement into pūrvārcika (the verses in their bare form) and uttarārcika with the gāna books (the same verses written out as they are actually sung). The Sāmaveda is therefore the earliest notated music in any tradition: a text whose entire content is the difference between a sentence and a song.

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.

Om, and the doctrine of the udgītha

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad belongs to this Veda, and it opens not with metaphysics but with a singer's instruction — because the udgītha, the loud-sung portion of the Sāman, is the syllable Om itself.

ओमित्येतदक्षरमुद्गीथमुपासीत। ओमिति ह्युद्गायति।

om ity etad akṣaram udgītham upāsīta | om iti hy udgāyati

One should meditate upon this syllable Om as the udgītha — for one sings aloud beginning with Om.

— Chāndogya Upaniṣad 1.1.1

Akṣara means both 'syllable' and 'the imperishable', and the Upaniṣad exploits the double sense from its first line onward. The path it opens is characteristic of the Sāma tradition: not from doctrine to practice but from practice to doctrine. A boy is taught to sing; the singing begins with a syllable; the syllable is then shown to be the essence of speech, of the Ṛc, of the Sāman, and finally of everything. Eight chapters later the same text arrives at tat tvam asi. The road from the first sentence to the last runs through a music lesson.

वेदानां सामवेदोऽस्मि।

vedānāṁ sāma-vedo'smi

Among the Vedas I am the Sāmaveda.

— Bhagavad Gītā 10.22

Kṛṣṇa's list of vibhūtis names, in each class, the item in which the divine is most evident — Meru among mountains, the Ganges among rivers, the Himālaya among fixed things. That the Sāmaveda is chosen among the Vedas, rather than the older and larger Ṛgveda from which its verses are borrowed, is a judgment about what the Sāman adds: not more information, but the transformation of the same words into something the whole body participates in.

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.

Sāmaveda

The same words, made into music

The birth of Indian music

Om, and the doctrine of the udgītha

What it carries

The sources of knowledge in Sanātana Dharma

Śruti — that which was heard

Smṛti — that which was remembered

Nigama and Āgama — the two revealed streams

The four Vedas

Ṛgveda