The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c6.s1.41

c6.s1.41

The Sāma-Veda is of all the Vedas the least clear as regards its origin and purpose. As a literary production it is almost entirely secondary and negative. The Sāma-Veda is interesting chiefly, because it is the Veda of music. In addition it contains some original practices to which tradition has attached a number of legends unknown in the other Vedic schools. There are no connected hymns in this Veda, only more or less detached verses, borrowed in the main from the Rig-Veda. Even the sense of these verses is subordinated to the music to which they are set. The verses are grouped in strophes which, when accompanied by their music, are known as *sāmāni*, “melodies.” The *sāman*-stanzas are preserved in three forms. First, in the Rig-Veda, as ordinary poetry accented in the usual way, and not accompanied by melodies. They are contained mostly in the first fifty hymns of the first book, and in Books viii and ix. Most of these stanzas are composed in the metre *gāyatrī*, or in strophes known as *pragātha*, which are compounded of *gāyatrī* and *jagatī* verse-lines. Both the words *gāyatrī* and *pragātha* are derived from the verb *gai*, “sing,” and show that the stanzas and strophes composed in these metres were from the start intended to be sung.