[Advaita-l] Question/Clarification on Chanting Vaidika mantras

[Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan]

As I mentioned, hand movements are deprecated in South India and that would
go for KYV shAkhA. An exception: Among the paNDita-s, some but not all,
ghanapAThi-s use some hand movements to connect up the pada text and going
back and forth between the different padas. They seem to find this useful.
However some other ghanapAThi-s do no not use any hand movement here
either. They just rattle off the entire thing, which is pretty amazing to
hear and watch. I must confess here that I use counting techniques or other
mnemonic schemes to memorize certain anuvAka-s, where I do count off my
fingers, or do something else. But I try to make it as inconspicuous as I
can.

Rama

On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 8:45 AM, Vēdānta Study Group <vedant.study at gmail.com>
wrote:

> hariH om
>
> Thanks, Venkatesh ji for the overall picture, and Balasubramanian ji for
> the specifics
>
> Balasubramanian ji, interesting to learn that the nod of head is
> prohibited across the board, but the northern shukla yajurvedis use hand
> movement to indicate the svaras.
> Do you have any idea of krishna yajurveda veda (KYV) shaakhaas? Though I
> am a Gujarati, through my association with teachers of Vedanta (Pujya Swami
> Dayananda ji and others), I have mostly studied the mantras in the KYV
> tradition.
>
> Namaste,
> Prashant
>
> On 1 November 2017 at 07:39, Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan <
> rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The actual question about bodily movements. So according to pretty much
>> all shikShas, there has to be a show of hands to indicate udAtta, svarita,
>> etc. But this is deprecated in the Southern traditions. The Northeren
>> shukla yajurvedins use a show of hands, but the southern shukla yajurvedins
>> do not. shiraH kampanam is strictly prohibited. However the nambudiris,
>> only when learning, indicate udAtta by upper tilt of the head, anudAtta by
>> downwards and svarita by sideways tilting of the head.
>>
>> See for an example
>>
>> https://www.facebook.com/soumyakaimukku/videos/897411777073744/
>>
>> Rama
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 12:04 PM Vēdānta Study Group via Advaita-l <
>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>
>>> hariH om
>>>
>>> Namaste All,
>>>
>>> During ucchAraN of vaidika mantras, is nodding the head or moving eyes
>>> up/down as a bodily support advisable to help modulate svaras? Or is one
>>> supposed to enunciate the svaras without the assistance of bodily
>>> movements? Could someone please clarify, and also, if possible, provide
>>> the
>>> pramANa where these instructions are given?
>>>
>>> Namaste,
>>> Prashant
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>