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http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/lf/stories/2002040201160200.htm
VEDAS ARE considered the fountain of knowledge. India's rich heritage, religion and culture can be traced to its roots in these scriptures. Vedic dharma has no specific beginning, which is why it is considered as endless.
Handed over the generations by the rishis, by word-of-mouth, Vedic smruthies were also passed on in a similar fashion. They were never written down or read from books. The Sanathana Dharma, as prescribed in the Vedas, is the basic principle in the conduct of human life that every Indian should be proud of.
But whither is gone that visionary gleam? Earlier, the Vedic culture, a combination of philosophical and materialistic science with religious base, was taught at Gurukulas. But then the Gurukula system itself is fast vanishing for want of committed students.
Such is the plight of the Indian psyche that foreign scholars like Max Mueller have understood the greatness of Vedas more than most Indians. A case in point was the incident involving the meeting between Dr. Einstein, a German scientist, and his Indian counterpart, Dr. N. B. Gupta.
Dr. Einstein hailed Gupta in Sanskrit, but the latter pleaded his inability to reply in that language. Astonished, Dr. Einstein is said to have retorted, "You hail from India, the original home of Hindu philosophy, yet you have not learned that language. Come see my library which treasures classic from Samskritham''.
Though considered by several illustrious linguists as the `mother' of all languages, unfortunately it has been cold-shouldered in its native land. Culture and language complement each other.
If we lose a language we tend to lose the culture embodied in it. The present generation's attempt to ape the West and provide a biased interpretation to the great Indian scriptures has made philanthropists realize the value of this knowledge. They have now taken up efforts to support the revival of study of the Vedas. It is with this objective, that the Veda Sasthra Vidya Trust, founded by S. N. Varadarajan, a local industrialist, established the Singanallur Narasimha Iyer Veda Patashala in Palakkad in 1996, which is affiliated to the Sringeri Math. The trust believes the preservation of Vedas is possible only by frequent chanting.
In a bid to support the Vedic revival, the trust, headed by C. G. Venkataramanan, decided to conduct a Sampurna Krishna Yajur Veda Ghana Parayanam between March 17 and April 12 at the Sringeri Vidhya Ashram, at Race Course.
The Yajur Veda pertains to yagna or worship. It refers to acts of worship such as oblations made into Agni.
It has two branches- Krishna and Shukla. While both contain mantras or incantations that has to be invoked during rituals, Krishna Yajur Veda has many explanations. The literary value of Yajur Veda is mostly for its prose, which is made up of terse sentences that contain deep meaning and cadence. Hence, great emphasis is laid on the pronunciation and swara (tune).
The Krishna Yajur Veda is divided into Kandas (books) of 44 prasnas (chapters) and each of 651 anuvakas (sections).
It has two different forms of _ "continuous recitation'' (the tune is recited without any special morphological changes) and - "word for word recitation'' (text is recited so that each word is broken up into its constituent syllable. This approach is taken to avoid the loss of syllabic content through euphonic combination).
In the 27-day Ghana Parayanam, inaugurated by the Omkara Nanadhar of Chitbavananda Ashram, 11 Ganapadigals from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and five vidyarthees from the Veda Patashala are chanting the Vedas for eight hours a day (8.30 to 11 a.m., 3.00 to 6.00 p.m. and 6.30 to 8.30 p.m). It has been organized at a total cost of Rs. 6.5 lakhs.
By G. Satyamurty
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