Sanskrit Manuscripts : Grāmageyagāna

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Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>A modern manuscript of the <i>Grāmageyagāna</i>, the so-called “Village song-book” that gives the <i>mantra</i>s of the <i>Pūrvārcika</i> of the <i>Sāmaveda</i> in the form in which they are sung (altered through vowel prolongation, syllable modifications and repetitions, insertion of meaningless syllables called <i>stobha</i>s, etc.), as well as the melodies on which the <i>mantra</i>s are sung. The text in this manuscript constantly deviates from the <i>Grāmageyagāna</i> of the Jaiminīya <i>śākhā</i> (Vedic school) as given in Vibhūtibhūṣaṇa Bhaṭṭācārya’s edition (1976): in fact, this is possibly the still unpublished <i>Grāmageyagāna</i> of the Rāṇāyanīya <i>śākhā</i>, as suggested by the use of writing a small circle (<i>bindu</i>) over long vowels to mark their nasalization; the <i>bindu</i> has been transcribed here with an <i>ṁ</i> placed after the nasalized vowel. (We would like to acknowledge the fundamental help provided by prof. Asko Parpola for the cataloguing of this manuscript).</p>