History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c51.91
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c51.91
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v3.c51.91.1
Most of the sāman chants are taken from the Ṛgveda. In reciting a verse from the Ṛgveda attention has to be paid to the accents called udātta, anudātta and svarita. When the same verse is chanted as a sāman, one has to attend besides to the notes of the melody to which the verse is being sung. The way of marking the accents of the Ṛgveda verse is not followed when it is taken in the Sāmaveda. The svarita of the Ṛgveda is represented in the Sāmaveda MSS. in several ways, but generally by the figure 2 written above the letter and anudātta preceding an udātta is represented in the Sāmaveda saṁhitā by the figure 3 and udātta following an anudātta has the figure one placed on the letter. There are further detailed rules about these accents and also other marks which are not set out here. Only one further remark is made. The letter 'ra' preceded by 3 is placed over a svarita coming after the udātta which follows another udātta. Modern sāma singers have generally no knowledge of these ancient rules and signs but only chant as they learned from their teachers, nor do their chants always agree with the notations in the several MSS. Further there is a certain monotony and sameness in their melodies. If one hears a modern singer sing songs in several rāgas like the *Jogī* or *Jhinjoṭī* or *Khamāch* a person totally ignorant of the rāgas can feel, however vaguely, the difference between the two. But this is not so when a Rathantara melody or a Bṛhat melody is sung.
v3.c51.91.2
According to the Sāmavidhāna-brāhmaṇa (I. 1. 8 and 14) these notes (also called *svaras*) are seven, viz. kruṣṭa, prathama (1st), dvitīya (2nd), tṛtīya, caturtha, pañcama (or mandra) and antya (last) or atisvārya.²⁵⁹¹ Sāyaṇa explains that the seven svaras named above are arranged in a descending scale, though from the words first, second and so on one is apt to suppose that they are in an ascending scale. Sāyaṇa further states that these seven svaras are also called yamas.²⁵⁹² In the Nāradīya-śikṣā (Benares Sanskrit series) the seven svaras are stated to be prathama, dvitīya, tṛtīya, caturtha, mandra, kruṣṭa and atisvāra (1. 12). The kruṣṭa is the highest note and comes before prathama in many texts. The same work (III. 5) mentions the seven classical notes, ṣaḍja, ṛṣabha, gāndhāra, madhyama, pañcama, dhaivata and niṣāda (which are indicated in modern India as *sa ri* or *re ga ma pa dha ni*). The Nāradīya-śikṣā then (V. 1-2) tries to establish a correspondence between the seven ancient names of the notes of sāma chanters and the seven notes of classical times by stating that the seven sāman notes mentioned (from prathama onwards) are respectively the same as the notes produced on the Indian *vīṇā* (lute) called madhyama, gāndhāra, ṛṣabha, ṣaḍja, dhaivata, niṣāda and pañcama. Pandit Sātavalekar (Introduction to the edition of the Sāmaveda p.
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2) holds that the printed Nāradīya-śikṣā has wrongly transposed the places of *niṣāda* and *dhaivata*.²⁵⁹³ The notations employed in the North Indian and South Indian MSS. of the Sāmaveda vary considerably and the confusion is made worse by the fact that the several śākhās (such as the Kauthumas, the Rāṇāyanīyas and Jaiminīyas) have various readings and varying notations of their own. The Nāradīya-śikṣā further points out (VI. 2-6) that the sāmans can be sung to the notes of the ordinary vīṇā and also to the accompaniment of the movements of the thumb and fingers of the hand (and so it calls the latter gātravīṇā, 'body-lute'). The reciter sitting cross-legged is to place his hands on the two knees, to touch by the tip of the thumb the middle parva (joint) of the fingers for indicating the several notes of the song (and not the root of the fingers) and to hold the hand in front of his nose like a cow's ear. The seven svaras are indicated as follows:²⁵⁹⁴ the kruṣṭa is on the head (top) of the thumb, the prathama (i. e. madhyama of classical notes) is on the central part of the thumb; gāndhāra, ṛṣabha, ṣaḍja and dhaivata (i. e. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and mandra) are respectively indicated by (touching with the tip of the thumb the central joints of) the fore-finger, the middle finger, the ring finger and the small finger; and niṣāda is indicated at that part of the palm below the small finger which resembles a channel when the fingers are closed in a fist.