Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.s2.1

c7.s2.1

The accentuation of the Sāma Veda, as used in South-India, is a subject beset with difficulties, of which it is impossible here to give more than a very brief notice, for not only do the MSS. of different Çākhās present different systems, but the MSS. of the text followed by one and the same Çākhā often present essential variations². MSS. of the Ārcika parts of this Veda are seldom accented, as being of little importance, for the gānas really constitute the Veda. Occasionally one finds the udātta marked by a circle. The musical notation of the gānas as practised in S. India is very complicated, and is explained in a separate paribhāshā³. It appears to be on much the same principle as the musical notation of the ancient Greeks, and consists in using combinations of a consonant with a vowel to express a group of notes. This old system (as it is termed) which was used by Sāyaṇa, has been nearly superseded by the N. Indian notation by numbers, which was introduced from Gujarat into Tanjore during the last century at the earliest. Even now, it is excessively hard to find a Sāma-Vedī who can give any explanation at all of these notes, and in a few years the only guides will be the treatises on the formation of the gānas which indeed are, probably, the only safe ones at present.