A History of Sanskrit Literature c10.3

c10.3

The *Sāmaveda* consists of 1549 stanzas, distributed in two books called *ārchikas* or collections of *ṛich* verses. The principle of arrangement in these two books is different. The first is divided into six lessons (*prapāṭhaka*), each of which contains ten decades (*daçat*) of stanzas, except the sixth, which has only nine. The verses of the first twelve decades are addressed to Agni, those of the last eleven to Soma, while those of the intermediate thirty-six are chiefly invocations of Indra, the great soma-drinker. The second book contains nine lessons, each of which is divided into two, and sometimes three sections. It consists throughout of small groups of stanzas, which, generally three in number, are closely connected, the first in the group being usually found in the first book also. That the second book is both later in date and secondary in character is indicated by its repeating stanzas from the first book as well as by its deviating much less from the text of the *Rigveda*. It is also a significant fact in this connection that the verses of the first book which recur in the second agree more closely with the readings of the *Rigveda* than the other verses by which they are surrounded. This can only be accounted for by the supposition that they were consciously altered in order to accord with the same verses in the second book which were directly influenced by the *Rigveda*, while the readings of the first book had diverged more widely because that book had been handed down, since the original borrowing, by an independent tradition.