[INDOLOGY] Frits Staal on the sameness of Vedic recitation

[David and Nancy Reigle]

So many interesting things come up on this list!

I did not know about the major Archives and Research Center for
Ethnomusicology at the American Institute of Indian Studies:
https://www.indiastudies.org/ethnomusicology/. Thank you Patrick Olivelle.

Yes, thanks J. M. Fritzman for the suggestion. It seems that eight years
ago Smithsonian Folkways Recordings put up on youtube all the individual
recitations from the LP The Four Vedas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uceRMF6ryJ0&list=OLAK5uy_lOC9OwVFSJpEfWJHIiqolcK-kWqPhvdHs&index=2
.

Very glad to know that the whole LP The Four Vedas has been digitized and
is available for download purchase:
https://folkways.si.edu/the-four-vedas/poetry-world/album/smithsonian, and
the necessary accompanying booklet can be downloaded free:
https://folkways-media.si.edu/docs/folkways/artwork/FW04126.pdf. Thank you
Finnian Moore-Gerety, and for referencing your important annotated
bibliography, Vedic Oral Tradition.

Likewise, very glad to know that the whole Daniélou recording has been
digitized and is available online. Thank you Matthew Kapstein. I did not
know that Archive.org had recordings such as this. I see that the necessary
accompanying 13-page liner notes can be downloaded from this page at the
link you gave:
https://ia904504.us.archive.org/18/items/lp_india-i-vedic-recitation-and-chant_alain-danilou/lp_india-i-vedic-recitation-and-chant_alain-danilou.pdf
.

Wonderful that recordings of Vedic recitations from 1904 are available.
Thank you Michael Witzel. It is surprising to me that any were allowed to
be made back then, because Daniélou wrote about his 1950 recordings that:

"The verses of the Vedas may be spoken or psalmodized only by Brahmins.
They should be heard only by Hindus of high caste. These restrictions which
were absolute in ancient times, are even today observed on a rather broad
scale among orthodox Brahmins who alone possess the tradition of the Vedic
chant. The recording of the Vedic chant, consequently, presented
considerable obstacles which took several years to overcome."

Best regards,

David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20240218/6e3de1ea/attachment.htm>