[INDOLOGY] meters and songs: the Vedas /// Re: Does anyone know of Sanskrit works that use 2nd-syllable rhyming

[George Thompson]

Dear Jan,

Could you please elaborate on your parenthetical remark that '(Frits
Staal's theory on the Saamaveda therefore needs modification)'?  Frits
certainly was aware of the importance of saamans in the RV.  I am
constantly brooding about the riddles and enigmas of RV 1.164, which, as I
am sure you know, not only mentions saamans but also exhibits saaman-like
phonic patterns.  Frits and I frequently talked about these things over the
last decade  of his life.

I would be interested to hear a more elaborate comment.

Best wishes,

George

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 6:24 AM, Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Prof Paturi,
> Re: the statement which you forwarded, apparently with approval. This is
> purely hypothetical and beyond verification as the oldest text sufficiently
> attested that uses and reflects on verse-meters,
> the Rgveda, is also permeated by the knowledge and employment of
> "song-forms": saamans (Frits Staal's theory on the Saamaveda therefore
> needs modification). It was observed long ago by Oldenberg that the oldest
> textbook of the Saamaveda is the Rgveda itself: large parts are apparently
> from the beginning composed for the sake of "Saamavedic" employment.
> The absence of even a trace of Saamans and Saamaveda in the Avestan
> tradition vs. its pervasive presence in the Vedic tradition is remarkable
> and not compensated by the presence in both traditions of the genre of the
> Gaatha.
> Jan Houben
>
>
>
> *Jan E.M. HOUBEN*
>
> Directeur d’Études
>
> Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite
>
> *École Pratique des Hautes Études*
>
> *Sciences historiques et philologiques *
>
> 54, rue Saint-Jacques
>
> CS 20525 – 75005 Paris
>
> johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>
> https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
>
> www.ephe.fr
>
>
> On 29 July 2015 at 09:15, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Sri Naresh Keerthi wrote :
>>
>> >This feature of poetry seems to have eventually percolated into
>> recitative/performative forms that were half-way between poems and songs,
>> as well as into genres that were entirely song like.
>>
>> ----- Both first syllable and second syllable intraline rhymings are
>> features found in proverbs, riddles and other verbal folklore
>> forms functioning as auditory aesthetic forms serving as memorising tools
>> for the tradition-bearers of these oral traditions.
>>
>> It is more reasonable to expect a sharing of this feature by the native
>> verse-meters and lyrical forms with the folklore forms or diffusion of
>> these features from the verbal folklore forms and folk songs into
>> verse-meters rather than from verse-meters into song-forms.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Prof.Nagaraj Paturi
>> Hyderabad-500044
>>
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