Samaveda

The Samaveda is one of the four Vedas, an ancient Sanskrit collection whose verses are arranged for chanting in Vedic rituals. Its melodies and performance traditions make it central to the history of Indian music.

Rigveda: An ancient Sanskrit collection of hymns that forms one of the four Vedas. Most Samaveda verses are adapted from Rigvedic hymns for musical chanting.
Saman: A Vedic chant melody, especially one performed using verses of the Samaveda. A saman is the musical form into which Samavedic verses are shaped.
Kauthuma Shakha: A major surviving recension of the Samaveda, preserved especially in western and northern India. Its tradition preserves a widely studied form of the Samaveda.
Satyavrata Samashramin: An Indian Vedic scholar known for editing and studying Samaveda texts. His scholarship helped make Samavedic textual traditions available in print.
Indian classical music: A family of South Asian art-music traditions organized around melodic frameworks and rhythmic cycles. The Samaveda is often treated as an early source for Indian musical thought, though direct continuity is debated.
Vedic chant: A ritual vocal tradition that preserves and performs texts of the Vedas through regulated recitation. Samavedic verses take their distinctive form through prescribed melodic recitation.
Udgatri: A priest in Vedic ritual who sings Samavedic chants. The udgatri performs the Samaveda's chants during the sacrifice.
Ranayaniya Shakha: A surviving recension of the Samaveda associated with the Kauthuma tradition and western India. Its readings and chant practice offer a distinct Samavedic transmission.
Wayne Howard: An American ethnomusicologist who documented and studied Vedic chant traditions in India. His recordings and research brought living Samavedic performance to wider scholarly attention.
Hindustani classical music: The North Indian tradition of classical music, shaped by raga, tala, improvisation, and vocal lineages. Its vocal history is often compared with Vedic chant, despite major differences in repertoire and practice.

Linked from 9 pages