The book explores the "Hymns of the Samaveda," emphasizing rituals where Soma juice is offered to deities. Adapted from the Rigveda, its verses are rearranged for these ceremonies, often with variations. The text begins with chants to Agni, the god of fire, invoking blessings and sacrificial offerings. It includes modern additions like the benedictory line and invokes Lord Ganesha, a post Vedic deity believed to remove obstacles. Each stanza follows the Gayatri meter, with Agni serving as the intermediary between humans and gods in Vedic rituals.
Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith (1826-1906) was an English Indologist known for translating the Vedas into English. He served as the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford. Griffith's translations, including the Rigveda and other Sanskrit texts, followed Sayana's interpretations. He lived in India, teaching at Benares College and later retiring to Kotagiri in the Nilgiris, where he continued translating. His works, available online, include translations of the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajur Veda, Atharvaveda, and Ramayana, contributing significantly to Vedic scholarship.
THE Samaveda, or Veda of Holy Songs, third in the usual order of enumeration of the three Vedas, ranks next in sanctity and liturgical importance to the Rigveda or Veda of Recited Praise. Its Sanhita, or metrical portion, consists chiefly of hymns to be chanted by the Udgatar priests at the performance of those important sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and infixed with milk and other ingredients, was offered in libation to various deities. The Collection is made up of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, taken manly from the Rigveda, transposed and re-arranged, without reference to their original order, to suit the religious ceremonies in which they were too he employed. In these compiled hymns there are frequent variations, of wore or less importance, from the text of the Rigveda as we now possess it, which variations, although in some cases they are apparently explanatory, 'seem in others to be older and more original than the readings of the Rigveda. In singing, the verses are still further altered by prolongation, repetition and insertion of syllables, and various modulations, rests, and other modifications prescribed, for the guidance of the officiating priests, in the Ganas or Song-books.
Vedas (1182)
Upanishads (493)
Puranas (624)
Ramayana (741)
Mahabharata (354)
Dharmasastras (165)
Goddess (496)
Bhakti (242)
Saints (1503)
Gods (1290)
Shiva (370)
Journal (187)
Fiction (60)
Vedanta (362)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist