[Advaita-l] Svarita in RV and YV (was Re: SRI SUKTAM - Meaning)

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

Bhaskar,

I think you are not seeing my point at all.

I completely acknowledge that the general south Indian RV tradition
renders a dIrgha svarita in specific cases where the general south
Indian taittirIya YV tradition renders regular svarita. I do not know
about traditions from other regions, including Kerala.

However, what I am highlighting is that this is NOT a fundamental change
of the tone. It is only a change in the STYLE of rendition of the
svarita. In a regular svarita, as recited in practice, the tone of the
sound directly rises above that of udAtta. In a dIrgha svarita, the
first half of the sound perceptibly stays at the udAtta and the second
half rises above that of udAtta. For all practical purposes, you can
view the dIrgha svarita as a special case of the svarita. It is not a
completely different tone.

Please go back to my previous posts and read carefully. The crux is,

"the udAtta in RV remains udAtta in YV, the anudAtta in RV remains
anudAtta in YV, and so on."

One can write down a rule of thumb for the svarita specialities. In RV,
dIrgha (long) vowel combined with a svarita tone is ALWAYS dIrgha
svarita. In YV, dIrgha vowel combined with a svarita tone is dIrgha
svarita ONLY in two cases: (a) when it occurs at the end, or (b) when
followed by a conjunct consonant. 

If you look at the first part of the two sentences above, what is common
is dIrgha vowel + svarita tone. It is not as if somehow in RV a given
sound is svarita, but the same sound in a parallel YV verse becomes
udAtta or anudAtta. A similar distinction between the two traditions
exists in some cases, when the vowel is short, but the syllable is heavy
(guru), e.g.

1. "ti" in bRhaspatirdadhatu - RV has dIrgha svarita, YV has regular
svarita, 
2. "va" in kakshIvantam ya - RV has dIrgha svarita, YV has regular
svarita.

Nevertheless, the svarita is svarita in both vedas, although the style
of reciting it differs.

Coming to other specifics,

I don't know what you mean by svarita/udAtta for the syllable "No" in
the pra No devI verse. The base word is "naH" and it is anudAtta. You
can hear this clearly in padapATha. Because it follows the word pra
(with the ra sound in it), you have a n -> N conversion and visarga
becomes o because of the following word devI (sandhi rules). Now, the
word "pra" is udAtta, so the anudAtta "naH" becomes svarita "No". Only
in a jaTA or ghana pATha context can there be a pracaya applied to this
syllable, but then, the same pracaya will apply to these modified
pATha-s in both RV and YV recitation traditions. As o is always dIrgha
in Sanskrit, apply the above rule for svarita style in the RV and YV
cases.

The syllable "pyA" in the ApyAyasva verse is svarita, never udAtta, at
least according to every yajurvedin reciter I have heard so far in my
life. This example also falls squarely under the above rule. There is
another YV sentence that is repeated a couple of times in the taittirIya
brAhmaNa and AraNyaka - ApyAyasva saM te (not sametu te), and here too,
the syllable pyA is svarita. Again, the only difference is the style -
dIrgha svarita in RV vs. regular svarita in YV. If a printed book has
udAtta for "pyA" in this verse for the YV version, that is wrong. Even
those publications with blessings and benedictions from the most highly
respected AcArya-s are not free of printing mistakes. The AcArya-s are
not at fault for these errors and and the very same AcArya-s will tell
you to learn the veda live, not from any book. The printed version can
be used at best as a crux to a failing memory. It is not and should not
be a primary or even a secondary source for learning the text. And in
case of any doubt, go listen to good reciters.

Re: citra-kshatra-citratamaM (not kshatraM citratamaM) and usage of
citraH (with visarga), I don't see the latter in the printed or online
texts of the Rk-saMhita, but I have to check with the few experts I
know. Do note that variant wordings are sometimes found for otherwise
almost identical verses. See for example,

"... kRNuhi brahmaNaspate | kakshIvantaM ya auSijaM ||" (mahAnArayaNa
upanishat - YV)
"... kRNuhi brahmaNaspate | kakshIvantaM ya auSijaH ||" (RV
brahmaNaspati sUkta).

See also Rgveda verses 1.114.1-2
(http://www.ms.uky.edu/~sohum/sanskrit/rigveda/R01.itx) and compare with
corresponding verses in the penultimate anuvAka of YV rudra chapter.
Note that inspite of the variant wordings, and after taking into account
the svarita rules described above for RV and YV, the tones for each
corresponding syllable are identical in the two veda texts.

Vidyasankar