A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s5.1

v1.c8.s5.1

Of the many Saṃhitās of the Sāmaveda which are said to have existed once—the Purāṇas even speak of a thousand Saṃhitās—,² only three have come down to us.³ The best known of these, the Sāmaveda-Saṃhitā of the Kauthumas,⁴ consists of two parts, the Ārcika or the "verse-collection" and the Uttarārcika, the "second verse-collection." Both parts consist of verses, which nearly all recur in the Ṛgveda. Of the 1810—or, if we subtract the repetitions, 1549—verses, which are contained in the two parts together, all but 75 are also found in the Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā and, mostly in Books VIII and IX of the latter. Most of these verses are composed in Gāyatrī metre or in Pragātha stanzas which are made up of Gāyatrī and Jagatī lines, and doubtless the stanzas and songs composed in these metres were from the beginning intended for singing.¹ The seventy-five verses which do not occur in the Ṛgveda, are partly found in other Saṃhitās, partly in various works on ritual; some may be taken from a recension unknown to us, but some are only pieced together out of sundry verses of the Ṛgveda without any proper meaning. Some of the verses of the Ṛgveda met with in the Sāmaveda offer divergent readings, and it has been believed that a more ancient text might be recognized in them. But Theodor Aufrecht,² has already shown that the divergent readings of the Sāmaveda are due only to arbitrary, intentional or accidental alterations—alterations such as also occur elsewhere where words are prepared for music. For in the Sāmaveda, in the Ārcika as well as in the Uttarārcika, the text is only a means to an end. The essential element is always the melody, and the purpose of *both* parts is that of teaching the melodies. The scholar, who wished to be trained as an udgātar-priest in the schools of the Sāmaveda, had first to learn the melodies: this was done with the aid of the Ārcika; then only could he memorize the stotras as they were sung at the sacrifice, for which purpose the Uttarārcika served.