[Advaita-l] SRI SUKTAM - Meaning

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>My book from Sringeri, compiled by Anantarama Dikshitar,
>former AsthAna vidvAn of Sringeri gives this as chandraGm ..
>etc. I myself chant chandragm rayim in private 

That's interesting. My teacher mentioned that this mantra is
not in the yajus-samhitA, so should not be chanted this way!
He also applied this to the svarita in the word citayantam and
told me to recite it in the Rgvedic fashion, using the so-called
dIrgha svarita.

I agree that the correct procedure is to follow what one's own
Guru has taught, but would also point out that there is some
merit in privileging a source text. Except that, in the Indian
context, and especially for the veda, the source text is not
a written/printed version, but the orally constituted text.
Inasmuch as there is a Rk samhitA and different versions
of the yajus samhitA, which are passed on through learning
to recite them, one can indeed distinguish what is unique to
one versus the other. This applies not only to the content of
the text, but also to the way it is recited, including the
pitches used, the cadence etc.

Thus, although the SAnkarbhAshya on the taittirIyopanishad
indicates a possibility of "Om ity etad anukRtir ha sma .."
the recitation experts are unanimous in reciting this text as
"Om ity etad anukRti ha sma ...". So anukRti it is (without
visarga), no matter what a textual scholar may reconstruct
from the bhAshya.

Re: the description of svarita, I am personally only familiar
with the taittirIya prAtiSAkhya. It seems to me that what is
practiced orally can be understood quite well with respect to
what that text says about the svarita, but it requires a small
adjustment of how one understands the prAtiSAkhya itself.
That is a separate and highly involved issue though, so I won't
get into it here.

Vidyasankar