Vedic chant
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The oral tradition of the Vedas (Śrauta) consists of several pathas, "recitations" or ways of chanting the Vedic mantras. Such traditions of Vedic chant are often considered the oldest unbroken oral tradition in existence, the fixation of the samhita texts as preserved dating to roughly the time of Homer (Early Iron Age).
The various pathas are designed to allow the complete and perfect memorization of the text and its pronunciation, including the Vedic pitch accent.
UNESCO proclaimed the tradition of Vedic chant a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 7, 2003.
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[edit] Pathas
Mainly the students are first taught the samhita patha, that is the text with sandhi applied. Other pathas include vakya, pada, krama, jata, mala, sikha, rekha, dhvaja, danda, ratha, ghana.
A pathin is a scholar who has mastered the patha. Thus, a ghanapaathin (or ghanapaati in Telugu) has learnt the chanting of the scripture up to the advanced stage called ghana. Ghanapathins chant the ghana by intoning a few words of a mantra in different ways, back and forth. The sonority natural to Vedic chanting is enhanced in ghana.
The padapatha consists of dividing the sentence (vakya) into individual pada or words. The kramapatha consists of pairing two words at a time. In Jatapatha, the words are braided together, so to speak, and recited back and forth. The Ghanapatha or the "Bell" mode of chanting is so called because the words are repeated back and forth in a bell shape. The samhita, vakya and krama pathas can be described as the natural or prakrutipathas. The remaining 8 modes of chanting are classified as Vikrutipathas as they involve reversing of the word order. The backward chanting of words does not alter the meanings in the Vedic (sanskrit) language.
The chief purpose of such methods is to ensure that even not even a syllable of a mantra is altered to the slightest extent, which has resulted in the most stable oral tradition of texts worldwide.
[edit] Divine Sound
The insistence on preserving pronunciation and accent as accurately as possible is related to the belief that the potency of the mantras lies in their sound when pronounced. The shakhas thus have the purpose of preserving knowledge of uttering divine sound originally heard by the rshis.
Portions of the Vedantic literature elucidate the use of sound as a spiritual tool. They assert that the entire cosmic creation began with sound: "By His utterance came the universe." (Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad 1.2.4). The Vedanta-sutras add that ultimate liberation comes from sound as well (anavrittih shabdat).
Primal sound is referred to as Shabda Brahman - "God as word". Closely related to this is the concept of Nada Brahman - "God as sound". Nada, a Sanskrit word meaning "sound, noise", is related to the term nadī, "river", figuratively denoting the stream of consciousness - a concept that goes back to the Rig Veda, the most ancient of the Vedas[citation needed]. Thus, the relationship between sound and consciousness has long been recorded in India's ancient literature. Vedic texts, in fact, describe sound as the pre-eminent means for attaining higher, spiritual consciousness.
Mantras, or sacred sounds, are used to pierce through sensual, mental and intellectual levels of existence (all lower strata of consciousness) for the purpose of purification and spiritual enlightenment. "By sound vibration one becomes liberated" (Vedanta-sutra 4.22).
Modern practitioners claim[citation needed] that the sounds of Sanskrit phonemes (aksharas) have been shown to affect the mind, intellect, and auditory nerves of those who chant and hear them (see also experiments[citation needed] by Hans Jenny), claiming that they affect the seven chakras of the spinal column, as well as the three pranic channels of the subtle body.
[edit] In Puranic Hinduism
The chanting of popular Hindu mantras like Om (found throughout the Vedas) or the Hare Krishna mantra (found in the Kalisantarana Upanisad) is also sometimes referred to as "Vedic chant" even if the chanting is not done according to a patha. The Gayatri Mantra is Rigvedic, but due to its popularity in Hinduism it is often chanted freely, and thus would also sometimes not strictly qualify.
