[Advaita-l] Fragments of kaTha Aranyaka ( charaka aranyaka )

[subhanu]

Animesh wrote: "At the point I'm disagree with you , instead of preserving written text our priority should be to preserve the oral tradition of katha shAkhA" 
Namaste, my meaning was exactly along the lines you suggest, but I am going further:
1) Wherever the complete living oral tradition still exists we should put our full efforts to preserve and propagate. It may not be in the capacity of every individual to learn themselves but if they have come across such sakhas and traditions and can either encourage /support students to study such sakhas in the traditional way or support those following and preserving these sakhas, then we should do our utmost to support. There are a number of projects along these lines that I am aware of already.
2) The question is what to do where no complete living oral tradition exists? To my knowledge there is nobody left who has maintained the complete living oral tradition of Kathaka Sakha. If such a person exists then it is our collective shame that we have not supported such people and encouraged others to study and preserve as has happened with Atharva Veda. Animesh if you know of such individuals who are maintaining Kathaka Sakha, then you must immediately connect them with us and others who can help. My point was the following: For traditions such as Kathaka Sakha with only incomplete records left and no complete living oral tradition, I believe we are at the point where not only could we reconstruct the written word but also the oral tradition. When going through the Kathaka Aranyaka mantras, it would fairly easy to mark any lost and reconstructed mantras with svara and recite with correct svara (the original bark manuscript has the accents preserved of what has been recorded there) . Together with the svara rules we could probably get close to the original recitation style of a lost Krishna Yajur Veda school given the close proximity of the Sakhas. For example we learned during our vedic study how to chant even " aham, AvAm, vayam.. " etc, the declination of personal pronoun "aham", with svara, as it is so intuitive. 
I have experimented myself with occasional mantras found in the Srauta Sutras with no known trace to reconstitute them with svara. I am not an expert but I am sure there are vidvaans who could do this.  I wonder if this has been attempted by anybody for Kathaka or another Sakha was my question, and could we help them?
Hope this clarifies
RegardsSubhanu