The Sāmaveda (सामवेद) — literally the "Veda of sāman" or melody — is the third of the four Vedas and the smallest in terms of distinct material. Its Samhita contains only 1,875 verses, and of these all but 75 are drawn directly from the Rigveda, mostly from Mandalas 8 and 9. The Samaveda's distinctiveness lies not in the words but in what is done with them: the same Vedic verses set to a system of melodic chant for the udgātṛ (उद्गातृ), the singer-priest of the Soma sacrifice.
Why a Veda of Music?
The Vedic yajña required four classes of priests, each with a distinct office. The hotṛ invoked with metrical verses from the Rigveda. The adhvaryu performed the ritual actions with prose formulae from the Yajurveda. The brahman silently supervised and corrected errors. And the udgātṛ sang. The Samaveda is the udgatri's libretto and score — the words to be sung and the melodies to which they must be set.
A Musical Transformation
A Rigvedic verse becomes a sāman only after considerable transformation. Words are stretched, syllables are inserted, vowels are repeated and prolonged, breaks are introduced, and meaningless syllables called stobhas — hā, huvā, uvā, o, au — are added to fit the verse to the melodic line. The Bhagavad Gita acknowledges the Samaveda's musical preeminence when Krishna declares (10.22): vedānāṃ sāmavedo'smi — "of the Vedas I am the Samaveda."
Structure of the Text
The Samaveda Samhita has two main divisions:
- The Pūrvārcika (पूर्वार्चिक, "first collection") — roughly 650 verses arranged by deity (Agni, Indra, Soma), serving as the basic verses to be set to the various melodies.
- The Uttarārcika (उत्तरार्चिक, "later collection") — roughly 1,225 verses arranged by liturgical function for use in actual Soma rituals.
The text is preserved in two principal recensions, the Kauthuma-Rāṇāyanīya (the most widespread, with sub-branches across northern, western, and southern India) and the Jaiminīya (preserved among the Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala and a few Tamil and Andhra communities). The Jaiminīya recension preserves a notably more archaic melodic style and has been the focus of much modern musicological study.
The Gānas
The Samaveda is not really complete without its accompanying gānas (गान), the melodic chant-books. There are four:
- Grāmageyagāna — village songs, suitable for ordinary settings.
- Āraṇyageyagāna — forest songs, considered too potent for habitation (see the dedicated article on Aranyaka-Gana).
- Ūhagāna — the "modified" chants used in actual ritual, in which verses from the Pūrvārcika are adapted to specific Soma rites.
- Ūhyagāna (or Rahasyagāna) — secret modifications, transmitted only to advanced students.
A Samavedin must master both the verses and the melodies, often hundreds of distinct sāmans keyed to particular ritual moments.
Notation and Pitch
Unlike the Rigveda, which is recited on three pitches (udātta, anudātta, svarita), the Samaveda uses up to seven notes — the yamas or kramas — which formed, according to most musicologists, the historical root of the Indian classical scale. The earliest known system of musical notation in India was developed for the Samaveda: a system of numerical superscripts above each syllable indicating pitch level, still used in printed editions today.
Attached Texts
The Samaveda has its own Brahmanas — the Tāṇḍya (Pañcaviṃśa) Brāhmaṇa and the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa — and notably hosts the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (one of the longest and oldest Upanishads, containing the mahāvākya tat tvam asi) and the Kena Upaniṣad (one of the most poetically refined).
Living Tradition
Samavedic chant is rarer than Rigvedic or Yajurvedic recitation; the chains of transmission have grown thin. But where it survives — particularly among the Nambudiri Jaiminīya tradition documented in the Agni ritual films of Frits Staal in 1975 — it is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable surviving musical traditions in the world, a continuous line of melody that may reach back three thousand years.