Pūrvārcika

The Samaveda contains the earliest tradition of music from India. It presents largely Rigvedic textual material in a form arranged for singing in the solemn Srauta ritual. Since the first editions by Theodor Benfey (1848) and Satyavrata Samasrami (1874–1899), there has been no complete, accented edition that also included all its important commentaries. The present edition is based on manuscripts collected from all over India and Europe. B. R. Sharma, Dean of Samaveda Studies, presents the accented text, its Padapatha, and the commentaries of Madhava, Bharata-Svamin, and Sayana in three volumes totaling 2,500 pages. These contain the Purvarcika and Uttaracika portions of the text, and a third volume the indexes and a detailed introduction to the whole work. Vols. 2 and 3 to appear soon.