Vedic Sanskrit Pronunciation
Anand Hudli
Despite the presence of various शिक्षा texts and the प्रतिशाख्य's, there is variation in the pronunciation of certain akSharas in Vedic chanting. For example, I have heard some pundits affiliated with the Kanchi Math chanting the Rg veda and I have observed that they pronounce "श" more
like "स", although the pronunciation of "ष" is fine. Similarly, I have heard chanting of the PaippalAda shAkhA of the atharva veda by Orissa pundits, and again, the "श" sounds like"स". I have heard many pundits from Karnataka and they do pronounce "श" correctly. I have not
heard Northern pundits chanting the Veda much, but the "ज्ञ" sounds like "ग्य", and "ऋ" like "रि". I have watched a video of a pUrnamAseShTi in Pune, where the shukla yajur veda priests pronounce "ष" like "ख". I understand that regional variations in pronunciation do exist
and they are acceptable in everyday (laukika) speech, but when it comes to recitation of Vedas, how can there such variations in pronunciation?
Regards,
Anand
Dipak Bhattacharya
From: Anand Hudli <ahu...@gmail.com>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 10 January 2013 9:07 PM
Subject: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Vedic Sanskrit Pronunciation
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Anand Hudli
I am not making accusations against anyone but asking whether such pronunication variations are acceptable in vedic chanting. For example, that the "DaLayor abhedaH" rule is accepted is common knowledge. The Rg vedic "La" gets replaced with
"Da" in the yajurveda. For the record, the shaunakIya shAkhA recitation CDs produced by Veda Prasar Samiti have the correct pronunciation of "श".
Regards,
Anand
Dipak Bhattacharya
Best
DB
Sent: Thursday, 10 January 2013 10:21 PM
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Vedic Sanskrit Pronunciation
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
Anand Hudli
I have heard the recitation of parts of the kANva shAkhA of the shukla yajurveda by Shri Parasurama Sastri and his disciples from Tamil Nadu. I have also heard some local (Bengaluru) students of the kANva shAkhA. The "ष" is pronounced as usual with no change. Is the change from "ष" to "ख" peculiar to the Northern tradition?
Anand
Vidyasankar Sundaresan
Dr. Yadu Moharir
As you know that even after sanskR^ita language got firm roots of regulation from paaNini, the natural tendencies of praakR^ita stiil continued and continues to affect the pronunciation.
ज्ञ् is pronounced ग्य, OR ज्ञ OR ग्न् (especially from northern India). मैथिलि pronounce"ष्" as "ख" (khaT shastraaNi). Bengali's pronounce "श्", "ष्" & "स्" only as "ष्". In Asama takes this to the next level by changing all thes three into "ह" I recall a famous shloks that demonstrates this point.
आशीर्वादं न गृह्वीयत पूर्वधेशनिवासिनः ।
शतायुरिति वक्तव्ये हतायुरितिवादिनाम् ॥
(NOTE & REQUEST - Can someone give ne the source for this shloka)
भजिजो आदिपुरुखीं. अखंडित ||
From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidya...@gmail.com>
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 8:47 PM
Subject: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Sha and kha in Sukla yajurveda
--
Anand Hudli
Anand
V Subrahmanian
I have observed, while traveling in Udipi, that "ब्रह्म" (brahma) (example, Rg veda 1.10.4) is pronounced not as "bramha", interchanging the "h" and "m' sounds, but exactly the way it is written, "brahma." In other contexts, I have heard "prahlAda" being pronounced the same as "prahlAda", without interchanging the "h" and "l" sounds, in which case it would sound like "pralhAda". I have also heard variations, for example in the Rudra mantra, "स्तुहि श्रुतं गर्तसदं युवानं...", where most Karnataka based reciters pronounce the "M" ending of "gartasadaM" with a kind of nasal "ai" sound (since it is being followed by a "yu"). Other reciters may not follow this method.
Anand
Even the famous 'तच्छं योरावृणीमहे गातुं यज्ञाय गातुं यज्ञपतये..’ the shAnti pATha occurring at the beginning of the puruShasUktam is pronounced the way you have indicated above. Another example is: शुभया स्मृत्या संयुनक्तु where the sound naturally comes the way shown above.
subrahmanian.v
Narsing Rao
8.4.58 अनुस्वारस्य ययि परसवर्णः and 8.4.59 वा पदान्तस्य .
In his commentary on 8.4.59, Bhattorji says अत्रानुस्वारस्य पक्षेऽनुनासिका यवलाः and gives the following examples: सँय्यन्ता , संयन्ता , सँव्वत्सरः , संवत्सरः , यँल्लोकम् , यं लोकम् (Actually the anunasika symbol should come on the first य् , व्, and ल् respectively, but Barah does not allow an anunasika symbol over a consonant without a vowel).
The interchange of म् and ह् in common parlance has always intrigued me, and I am waiting for an answer from the scholars...
Regards,
Narsing Rao
--
Hnbhat B.R.
Sivasenani Nori
The interchange of म् and ह् in common parlance has always intrigued me, and I am waiting for an answer from the scholars..
V Subrahmanian
[nose, नासा ]
subrahmanian.v
We are not capable of pronouncing the nasal ha followed by the anunAsika and so end up dropping the latter anunAsikA, or it is pronounced but we do not perceive it.
narayanan er
पद्दन्नोमास्हृन्निशसन्यूषन्दोषन्यकञ्छकनुदन्नासञ्छस् प्रभृतिषु॥ ६।१।६१
Here नास substituted with नस् and the sound नस् is more close to "nose".
Similarly हृदयस्य हृत् (heart)
पादस्य पत् (foot)
निशाया निट् (Night) etc.
Regards,
Narayanan
From: V Subrahmanian <v.subra...@gmail.com>
To: sivas...@gmail.com; BHARATIYA VIDVAT <bvpar...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 17 January 2013 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Vedic Sanskrit Pronunciation
Narsing Rao
Regards,
Narsing Rao
Sivasenani Nori
(As luck would have it, the copy I have of Dwight's edition has that particular page missing)
I. Sūtra
हकारान्नणमपरान्नासिक्यम् ॥ २१-१४ ॥
II. Māhiṣeya’s Commentary
हकारान्नकार-णकार-मकार-परान्नासिक्यमभीधानमिच्छन्त्येके आचार्याः[1] । यथा नः – “अह्नां केतुरुषसामेत्यग्रे ” (सं० २-४-१४)। यथा णः “शरद्यपराह्णे ” (सं० २-१-२)। यथा मः “ब्रह्म जज्ञामनमिति ” (सं० ५-२-७)॥
(Page १७५, Māhiṣeya’s Commentary; Mahopadhyaya Pandit V. Venkatarama Sharma, ed., Taittirīya-Prātiśākhya with the Bhashya Padakramasadana by Māhiṣeya, Madras: University of Madras, 1930. Madras University Sanskrit Series No. 1. DLI Barcode No. 4990010047962. This is one of the bhāṣyas that was consulted while composing the Triratnabhāṣya)
III. Tribhāṣyaratnam
‘ हकारात् ’ इति कर्म्मणि ल्यब्लोपे पञ्चमी। तस्मात् ‘ नणं ’ अपरं हकारमारुह्य नासिक्यं भवति। सानुनासिको (footnote in the original: सानुनासिक्य इति ग०, द०, मु० च। ) हकारः स्यादित्यर्थः। अह्नां केतुः। अपराह्णे। ब्रह्मवादिनः॥
IV. Vaidikābharaṇam
वैदिकाभरणम्
....यार्थः। नन्वयं शब्दान्तरादेशः किं न स्यात्? विकारिणोऽनुपदेशात्। सतो हि कार्यिणः कार्येण भवितव्यम्। असति तस्मिन् कस्यादेशस्स्यात् ? गुणविधिस्तु नैव घटते। गुणविकारिणो गुणशब्दस्य च प्रथमानिर्देशे हि स भवति। यथा ‘ पूर्वस्वरोऽनुनासिकः ’ (१५-१) ‘ समानाक्षराण्यनुनासिकानि ’ (१५-३) इति। प्रकरणविरुद्धश्च अत्र गुणविधिरागमाधिकारात्। न च ‘ स्विरतात्स हितायाम् ’ (२१-१०) इतिवत् गुणमात्रपर्यवसायिना शब्देन गुणविधिरिहाश्रयितव्यः, नासिक्यशब्दस्य गुणपर्यवसायित्वायोगात्। नासिकायां भवो वर्णो नासिक्यः। भावप्रत्ययान्तत्वे तु न रूपसिद्धिः। ‘ योपधाद्नुरूपोत्तमात् ’ (पा० ५-१-१३२) इति वुञ्विधानात्। प्रज्ञादित्वकल्पनायामपि नात्र गुणविधिर्घटते। गुणविकारिणष्षष्ठीनिर्देशाभावात्। तस्मादिह सूत्रशक्त्या वर्णान्तरागमविधिनिश्चिच्छिक्षायामनुक्तोऽपि पञ्चमो नासिक्योऽस्माकमवश्याभ्युपगन्तव्यः। हकारस्य मकारान्तस्थापरस्योच्चारणे विशेषः शिक्षायां स्मर्यते –
न वायुं हसमं योगे नासिकाभ्यां समुत्सृजेत्।
न वदेदुरसाऽत्यन्तं तथा यरलवेषु च ॥ इति ॥
(p485. Shama Sastri, R. and K. Rangacarya, ed.s; The Taittirīya-Prātiśākhya with the commentaries Tribhāṣyaratna and Vaidikābharaṇa, New Delhi: Moti Lal Banarsid Das. Accessed through Google Books, the earlier page was not available for preview)
V. Whitney
Hakārād iti karmaṇi lyablope pañcamī. tasmāt naṇamaparaṃ hakāramāruhya nāsikyam bhavati: anunāsikyo hakāraḥ syādityarthaḥ. ahnāṃ _ _ _ _ . apar- _ _ _ _. brahm- _ _ _ _.
14. After h, when followed by n, ṇ, or m, is inserted nāsikhya.
I have translated this rule according to its obvious and incontrovertible meaning, which, if it needed any external support, would find it in the almost precisely accordant rule of the Ath. Pr. (i.100: the teachings of the other treatises upon the subject are much less distinct: see the note on the Atharvan rule). But the commentator gives it an entirely different interpretation. The ablative hakārāt, he says, is here used in the sense of an accusative (his addition, “in the absence of lyap [the suffix ya],” I do not understand); and the sense is, that a nose-sound is imposed upon the h itself, or that the latter becomes nasal. It is not difficult to see on what this theory of the quality of a h preceding a nasal is founded – namely, a recognition of the fact that such a h is really an expiration of breath through the nose: it being not less true of h before a semivowel or nasal than before a vowel, that it is (borrowing, the phraseology of an earlier rule, ii.47[2]) udayasvarādisthāna ‘produced in the position of the succeeding letter.’ The commentator’s exposition might have come from the “some authorities” to whom the doctrine of that rule is attributed.
The examples given are ahnāṃ ketuḥ (ii.4.14), aparāhṇe (ii.1.25), and brahmavādinaḥ (i.7.14 et. Al.). Giving to the rule its real meaning, and applying the principle laid down at xxi.8 for the syllabic division, we should read ahh-nnām: and so with the rest. As was suggested under Ath. Pr. i.100, it is probably this separation of the h from the nasal in syllabication that has led to the division of the two in point of utterance, and then to the thrusting in between them of a transition-sound.
G. M. have adapted the reading of the rule to the new interpretation, and give hakārān naṇamaparan nāsikyam (the writing of n instead of ṃ before n is frequent with these MSS).
(pp 390-1; Whitney, William Dwight, The Taittirīya-Prātiśākhya with its Commentary the Tribhāshyaratna: Text, Translation and Notes. New Haven: The American Oriental Society, 1871. Accessed at Archive.org http://archive.org/details/tittiryaprtikhy00somagoog )
VI. Atharva-Veda Prātiśākhya with Whiteny’s commentary / notes
हकारान्नासिक्येन ॥१-१००॥
100. After h is inserted in like manner a nāsikya before a nasal mute.
The commentator paraphrases with hakārāt nāsikyena samānpade vyavadhānam bhavati; and adds as illustrations a part of the words already once given, under rule 58: viz. prāṇaḥ, pūrvāhṇaḥ, aparāhṇaḥ, apa hmalayati, vi hmalayati, vi hnute, brahma.
The Taitt. Pr. (xxi. 14) teaches the insertion of a nāsikya after h and before a following nasal in terms nearly equivalent to those of our own rule. The Ṛk Pr. (i.10, r.48, xlix) and the Vāj. Pr. (i.74,80) describe its mode of pronunciation, as a nose sound; and the latter, in its latest portion (vii.28), speaks of it again smong the constituents of the spoken alphabet; but, strangely enough, neither of them gives any rule respecting its occurrence.
What the sound may be which is thus taught to form the step of transition from the aspiration to a following nasal, it is hard to say with confidence. I can only conjecture it to be a brief expulsion of surb breath through the nose, as continuation of the h, before the expulsion of the sonant breath which constitutes the nasal. The pure aspiration h is a corresponding surd to all the sonant vowels, semivowels, and nasals of the alphabet that is to say, it is produced by an expulsion of breath through the mouth organs in any of the position in which those letters are uttered; it has no distinctive position of its own, but is determined in its mode of pronunciation by the letter with which it is most nearly connected. Thus the h’s of ha, of hi, of hu, and those before heard before the semivowels w and y in the English words when and hue, for instance, are all different in position, corresponding in each case with the following vowel or semivowel. H is usually initial in a word or syllable, and is governed by the letter which succeeds, and not by that which precedes it: but where it occurs before another consonant in the middle of a word – which is always its position in the Vedas before a nasal – the question may arise whether it shall adopt the mode of utterance of the letter before or after it: whether in brahma, for example, we divide brah. ma, and pronounce the h in the position of the a, or brah. ma, and in the position of the m, through the nose. According to the Hindu method of syllabication (see rule 56, above), the former is the proper division and the Hindu phonetists doubtless regarded the h as belonging with and uttered like a; and noticing at the same time the utterance, scarcely to be avoided, of at least a part of the h in the position of the m, they took account of it as a separate element, and called it nāsikya.
(pp 88-89. Whitney, William D. The Atharva-Veda Prātiśākhya or Śaunakīya caturadhyāyikāi. New Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. Second Reprint, Details of first printing etc. n.a.)
narayanan er
From: Narsing Rao <sthir...@gmail.com>
To: "v.subra...@gmail.com" <v.subra...@gmail.com>; BHARATIYA VIDVAT <bvpar...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 17 January 2013 5:31 PM
Anand Hudli
Thanks very much for the information.
>हकारान्नकार-णकार-मकार-परान्नासिक्यमभीधानमिच्छन्त्येके आचार्याः[1] । यथा नः – “अह्नां केतुरुषसामेत्यग्रे ” (सं० २-४-१४)। यथा णः “शरद्यपराह्णे ” (सं० २-१-२)। यथा मः “ब्रह्म जज्ञामनमिति ” >(सं० ५-२-७)॥
Anand
