A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s5.13

v1.c8.s5.13

Both parts of the Saṃhitā give us only the texts as they are *spoken*. The *melodies* themselves, in any case in the earliest times, were taught by oral, and probably also instrumental rendering. Of later origin are the so-called Gānas or "song-books" proper (from gā "to sing"), which designate the melodies by means of musical notes, and in which the texts are drawn up in the form which they take in singing, *i.e.* with all the extensions of syllables, repetitions and interpolations of syllables and even of whole words—the so-called "stobhas," as hoyi, hūva, hōi, and so on, which are partly not unlike our huzzas and other shouts of joy. The oldest notation is probably that by means of syllables, as ta, co, ṇa, etc. More frequent, however, is the designation of the seven notes by means of the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, with which the F, E, D, C, B, A, G, of our scale correspond. When singing, the priests emphasize these various notes by means of movements of the hands and the fingers.¹ There are, attached to the Ārcika, a Grāmageyagāna ("book of songs to be sung in the village" and an Araṇyagāna ("book of forest songs"). In the latter those melodies were collected, which were considered as dangerous (taboo), and therefore had to be learnt in the forest, not in the village.² There are also two other books of songs, the Ūhagāna and the Ūhyagāna. These were composed for the purpose of giving the Sāmans in the order in which they were employed at the ritual, the Ūhagāna being connected with the Grāmageyagāna, the Ūhyagāna with the Āraṇyagāna.³