The Music of Hindostan c15.26

c15.26

*Sāmaveda*. The symbol round which the elaborate ritual of the *Sāmaveda* gathers is that sacrifice of which the drinking of the juice of the *Soma* plant was the central point. The virtues of this juice are recapitulated in the ninth book of the *Ṛgveda*, from which mainly the words for the *Sāman* chants are taken.² *Soma* is translated ‘moon-plant’; and the *Sāmaveda* is specially connected with the worship of ancestors, whose abode was the moon. Great care was taken not to deviate from the original melody-types and rhythms, and the religious efficacy of the hymns was held to depend largely on the right application of directions contained in the Brahmanic explanations (*Brāhmaṇa*, not later than the sixth century B. C.) of the Vedic text (*Saṃhitā*). The expense of the full ceremonial was not small; the Soma sacrifice involved days in performance and months in preparation. A full description of its elaborate and gorgeous ritual is to be found in the *Aitareyabrāhmaṇa* of the *Ṛgveda*, translated into English by Martin Haug, 1863, and its close connexion with the fire-worship of the Zoroastrians is there detailed. Other creeds have now swept across India and buried that of the Vedas in oblivion. The memory of the words and chants, and possibly of parts of the ritual, lingers chiefly in the South. Even there the true *Sāma*-singers are few, and impostors are beginning to flourish.