Sāmavedic Chant by Wayne HowardReview by: Frits StaalJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1979), pp. 347-348Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602685 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 04:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofthe American Oriental Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:03:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Reviews of Books 347

bution to the study of the Jaina Siddhanta.

W. BOLLEE HEIDELBERG

I Abridged below as V. 2 Abridged below as C. 3-3 The Bombay 1935 print reads manussehim saha((u

(423b 10f.). 4 Jacobi readpulaehim (PTS ed., London, 1882, p. 128). 5 For thrift as a bride test see Aarne Thompson, Types of

the Folk- Tale, Nos. 145 1f.; S. Thompson, Motif Index of Folk Literature, No. H 3 81.

6 Unless to destroy them as noxious animals of course. 7 As is actually done by the falco peregrinus, see, e.g., G.

Niethammer, Handbuch der deutschen Vogelkunde, II, Leipzig, 1938, p. 143.

8 F. Buchanan, An account of Bihar and Patna in 1811- 27, Patna 1936, p. 705 quoted after J. C. Jain, Life in Ancient India as depicted in the Jain Canons, Bombay 1947, p. 118 n. 75.

9 This word, like pasattha, may be connected with

par(i)$ad, see reviewer's Studien zum Sayagada, I, Wiesbaden, 1977, p. 87 and 219.

10 See reviewer's paper "Anmerkungen zum bud- dhistischen Haretikerbild," ZDMG 121 (1971), p. 82.

1 ZDMG, vol. cit., p. 84. 12 See K. Okuda, Eine Digambara-Dogmatik, Wies-

baden, 1975, p. 108 where also carakas occur-the caragas of our passage-and kana-caras for whom cf. the kana-bhaksr above?

Samavedic Chant. By WAYNE HOWARD. Pp. xxv + 572. New Haven and London: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1977.

The vedic Gods fought and created with rituals, mantras, and especially the melodies of the Samaveda. In the Vedic literature, names of samans such as Rathantara, Brhat and Vamadevya are household words, almost as familiar as the names of the gods themselves. These facts are well known, though they remain extraordinary. So is the comparative neglect of these chants by modern scholars. From works like the Puspasatra we can derive detailed knowledge about the sAmans of the past. Even at present, many of these chants continue to be sung in India. Yet Dr. Howard's work is the first thorough and systematic study of the surviving modes of Samaveda chant, and of the musical notations

found in the manuscripts of the Samaveda One reason that the Samaveda traditions have remained

largely inaccessible to the scholarly analysis is the orthodoxy of the brahmin priests, their sole repositories; for they have always shunned outsiders. Another reason is the elusiveness of the songs themselves. Though these traditions preserve some of the most remarkable chants found anywhere, which are of considerable antiquity and which are in still unexplained ways related to the origins and early stages of Indian music, they have, therefore, not received the attention they deserve.

On the textual side, Sanskrit scholars have paved the way br providing the textual materials upon which the Samaveda is based. Dr. Howard, though not orginally a Sanskrit scholar, is conversant with the arcane technicalities of the Samaveda, and is at home in the work of these predecessors. But since the essence of the Samaveda is melody (saman), these textual studies are of little use to the musicologist. There is only one systematic study of a system of musical syllable notation, carried out more than half a century ago (Simon's study of 1913 on the notations of the Ranayagryas); it takes no account of the actual practice of chanting. For the rest, the musical syllable notations have remained incomprehensible. Howard has subjected the chants of various traditions, their musical notations, and the gestures which accompany the chanting, to a careful and detailed analysis. In doing so, he has been able to explain many features of the theory and practice of chanting which had remained unknown, and has shown how these systems have to be understood, studied and used.

Apart from textual sources, the book is based upon a staggering amount of new material-in the form of tape- recordings and notes from interviews-gathered by the author through extensive fieldwork covering large areas of the Indian subcontinent. The 204 pages of Part III of this work consist entirely of careful transcriptions of some of these recordings. These materials alone are of immense value, especially since some of the traditions here are on the verge of extinction.

In the first part of the book, the materials are analysed, interpreted, compared with each other and with the manuscript notations, and conclusions are drawn. This part consists of a general introduction, a chapter on the Kauthuma numeral notation, a long chapter on the oral traditions of the Kauthumas and the Ranayanryas (which incorporates Ran.ayaniya material which was not known to exist), a chapter on the syllable notation of the Jaiminiyas, and another long chapter on the Tamil speaking and Nambudiri Jaiminrya communities in South India. In addition to an appendix, a glossary and a bibliography, there are nine tables and 48 illustrations. Among the latter, the most interesting are photographs of the gestures which

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:03:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

348 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.2 (1979)

accompany the chant, and which are analysed and explained in the text. Many of Howard's observations throw new light on terminology. For example, he has shown that svara is not a single tone, but implies "a musical phrase or motive" (p. 38).

To give an idea of the unique qualities of some of these chants, and of the special devices required to represent them, let me quote the author's comments on the Nambudiri Jaiminrya chant: "Nambudiri chanting is melismatic to such a degree that new terminology seems required. My transcription of a performance of JGG 1.1, for instance, shows at least 1 19 changes of pitch for the first two syllables of the text." The following is a simplified description of the manner in which Howard proceeds with his analysis. First of all, the chant here referred to is given in full transcription (pages 422-426). Next, it is shown that in chants of this type about 40 motives can be distinguished. Each of these motives consists of from two to fifteen tones, derived from an eight-tone gamut with an ambitus of a major sixth. Howard then introduces numeral-letter symbols: 5 b, for example, indicates a particular motive with five pitches. Having provided a description of each of these motives, Howard is now in a position to represent precisely, and for the first time, the motivic constituents of ten complete samans.

We are thus provided with a representation which expresses much of the melodic quality of these chants. But now their structure also becomes clearer, and a most unexpected conclusion emerges. Though the Nambudiri tradition is strictly oral, so that no use is made of any kind of notation, it is very close to the syllable notation which Howard had earlier discovered and deciphered in the manuscripts of another community of chanters, viz., the Tamil Jaiminryas. In fact, the Nambudiri chant is found to be "more faithful to the individual notation signs than the chants of the Tamil Jaiminfyas" (page 219).

Howard's book is replete with investigations of this type, which lead to a variety of unexpected conclusions. It reveals extraordinary cultural and musical riches, often preserved by small communities and hidden in inaccessible villages. In subjecting this material to analysis, Howard has opened up an entire new area of research. His is a pioneering work in the true sense of this much abused expression. He has shown not only what work can be done, but how it should be done. His conclusions throw light on the history of Brahmin communities, a subject about which little is known. However, they also make it clear that more similar work should be undertaken soon, before some of the more fragile among these oral traditions are extinct.

It is obvious that so much could not have been achieved had the ground not been prepared at least to some extent. Howard draws upon the few publications which exist in this

domain, ranging from the early investigations of Felber (1912), Fox Strangways (whose "Music of Hindostan" appeared in 1914), to the results of Simon, van der Hoogt, Bake and others. As I have myself dabbled in this area, I can state with some measure of confidence that Howard has not merely added another link to the chain of publications, but moved the entire area of investigation to a higher level of insight and sophistication. To put it in even more self- centered terms, I confess that here is a work that I would very much like to have produced myself.

FRITS STAAL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

L'ordre des mots dans l'Aitareya-brahmana. By J.-M. VERPOORTEN. Pp. 438. (Bibliotheque de la Faculte de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Universite de Liege, 216) Paris: LES BELLES LETTRES. 1977. FF. 75.00.

In some way this thesis may be the last of its kind: its subject was suggested to the author by the late Louis Renou, in 1963. After Renou's death it was supervised by Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin of the University of Liege.

The author makes his position clear in the introduction. After a brief survey of the contents of the Aitareya- brahmana, he devotes another section to "L'ordre des mots en Sanskrit. Histoire des recherches." There can be little doubt of whom he admires most: Berthold Delbruick, in Die altindische Wortfolge aus dem (7atapatha-brahmana dargestellt ( 1878) and Altindische Syntax (1888). It comes as no surprise then to read, at the outset of the next section, on "Orientation et methode," that Verpoorten's book "voudrait poursuivre sur I'AB la thche si brillamment entamee per Delbruck avec la SB, et la faire beneficier des progres realises depuis lors."

Twenty-five chapters-360 pages-are devoted to a most comprehensive study of every aspect of word order in the AB: the verb, predicate, subject, accusative, instrumental, locative, etc. etc. Every statement is supported with examples. (There is a useful index of passages quoted at the end of the volume.) Perhaps the author has tried to quote too many examples, with the result that he had to keep them as short as possible. Occasionally they have been kept too short. E.g., example 4 of ? 679 (p. 388), on the five powers of the virat; the example and, even more so, the translation, are misleading. I would have preferred: yat tripada tena uqjihagayatryau / yad ... tena ... ./ yad. . . tena. . . / yadviraf tat pancamam. The final clause means that being virat (besides uqlih, gayatr, triqtubh, and anuwyubh) is its

This content downloaded from 91.229.248.187 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:03:45 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions