#Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of Bharatham-3.4 : Swami Krishnananda

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#OPINION : 18/02/2020 : 2062.

##Chapter 3: The Vedas – the Foundation of Indian Culture -4.

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1.

The higher aspects or the phases of the meaning contained in the Vedas drew the attention of subsequent scholars and even rishis and sages, and they expatiated upon and commented upon one or the other of the aspects of the Vedas. 

Those who were interested only in the pronunciation, intonation and chanting of the Veda mantras took to further studies along those lines and entered into serious study of its grammar, phonetics, and the like, which led to the formation of six limbs of the Vedas, and these limbs are called Vedangas. Veda-anga: anga means limb. 

#Six limbs of the Veda are six auxiliary introductions to the study of the Veda. 

This work of writing separate textbooks on the Vedangas, as they are called, became necessary on account of emphasis specially laid on either the Samhita or the Brahmana. The phonetics or the pronunciation aspect of the Veda Samhitas was taken up for detailed consideration in a science called Siksha. Panini wrote this text called Siksha, on how to pronounce the Veda Samhita. 

#Any wrong pronunciation will bring a wrong meaning, and a wrong consequence will follow. So Siksha, as a science of intonation and phonetics, was developed as one of the angas or limbs of the Vedas.

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2.

#The grammar of the language also was very difficult. 

#The Vedas are written in Sanskrit, but it is an archaic, old type of Sanskrit, not the modern classical Sanskrit of Kalidasa, etc. 

##Therefore, it became necessary to write grammar, and this work also was of Panini only, who wrote Siksha. We are told that there are nine grammars that stand, but the most prominent one is Panini’s grammar, which is studied everywhere in schools and colleges these days.

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3.

#So the science of phonetics and chanting is one, and the science of understanding the grammatical meaning of the words of the Veda, called Vyakarana, was another. Vyakarana is grammar. The third limb of the Veda is Chandas, or metre. 

The lines of a poem are set in a definite number of words, and you will be surprised that in those most ancient of days, Many thousands of years before Christianity , the composers of the Veda mantras could present the whole Samhita in poetic form with systematic arrangement of words in various regular metres. 

The Veda Samhita is not written in one metre only; different sections are in different metres. 

What is this metre? 

What is the effect produced by the recitation of a mantra in a given metre? 

#That study also became one of the limbs of the Veda. It is called Chandas. Chandas is metre. 

Then comes the etymology of the words of the Vedas. Indra. 

What is this Indra? From where did this word arise? What is the root of this word? 

#Every word of the Veda had a root from which it arose, and the study of the roots of the words of the Veda mantras became another limb called Nirukta. Nirukta is the study of the etymology of the words of the Veda. So we have Siksha, Vyakarana, Chandas, Nirukta.

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To be continued ...

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JAY HIND

JAY BHARATHAM

VANDHE MATHARAM

BHARAT MATHA KI JAY.

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