The career of the long-married Veda pandit, soon to be united with his wife, now follows a trajectory with multiple options. The Taittiriya Samhita is trans mitted in several forms, vikrti, “modifications” of the “original” or model text. The student began with the continuous (samhita) recitation (patha). After completing samhita-patha he then proceeded to pada-patha, the same text over again broken down to separate words, pada, without regard to grammatical rules that alter certain initial and final letters when they are adjoining. Then he could continue for a third time with the same text in krama-patha, a step-by step recitation. The first and second recitation patterns are normative; most teenage students opt for a krama-patha examination and certification.
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The best and brightest students, however, may take a plunge into the more difficult recitations of the Taittiriya Samhita, the ghana-patha, for example, a compact braided form that was mastered by Duvvuri Phani, Yajulu’s grand son, and by the sons of Gullapalli Sitaram Sastri and now his grandsons. Some may generate a career out of such recitations as ghana-pathi, masters of ghana who recite professionally at pandit assemblies or other auspicious occasions, sometimes in pairs or quartets for antiphonal response.10 They become alche mists working the sounds, transforming the mantras, and transporting their hearers and quite frequently themselves, with their rich and powerful sym phonic performances. They do this in an entirely different mode from that of the specialists in the Sama Veda during a soma sacrifice. The jata-patha is another difficult recitation pattern attempted briefly by many but managed by few. Popular among Nambudiri Brahmans in Kerala is ratha-patha, the “char iot” recitation that has never been in fashion in Konasima.
On the other hand, rather than pursue other textual modifications of his hereditary Veda, after the sequence of Taittiriya Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanisad, the skillful student may turn to one of the other Vedas, another sakha, one of the several other schools or “branches” of Veda that emerged in India during the centuries of composition of the Upanisads.11 For “grad school” there are choices. Family tradition may direct the student into a second Veda such as the Rg Veda, followed perhaps by portions of the Sama Veda, and later the Atharva Veda. These students will “collect” portions of Vedas from other gurus, often in other places. Lanka, for example, learned the basics from Baballa’s father, then ghana and a great deal of srauta knowledge from the ahi tagni father of Mitranarayana, his future son-in-law, and later in life acquired much of the Atharva Veda from yet another mentor. In his early years Duvvuri Yajulu learned first from his father for four years before spending five years more, like Lanka, with Baballa’s father, Chinna Subrahmanya Somayajulu, in Mukkamala, followed by years with gurus in Korumilli, Vyaghresvaram, and Tanuku learning srauta, Sama Veda, and additional texts. The pandit Samavedam learned from three successive gurus in three different villages but stayed within the Taittiriya corpus and did not study srauta.
If the “returned” Taittiriya student begins adhyaya in some portion of the Rg Veda, for example, with the same or a different guru, he faces a Samhita with 1,028 hymns (sukta), comprised of rk, metrical verses, and collected in ten mandala. His childhood went into learning the Taittiriya texts and within them were numerous Rg Veda mantras and brahmana discussions of them. Lanka, who learned about three-fourths of the Rg Veda Samhita, his lessons coming from a division of the text into astaka, eight sections, was also drawn to the Asvalayana Srauta Sutra, the ritual manual for the Rg Veda. In one
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remarkable pedagogical swap Kapilavayi Yajnesvara Agnihotra Sastri and Tangirala Balagangadhara Sastri exchanged guru and student (sisya) roles in Kapilesvarapuram in reciprocal teaching of the Rg Veda and Atharva Veda Samhitas. So dominant is the Taittiriya Samhita, however, that only a few hereditary families of Rg Vedins may be found today in the Godavari Delta.11
If a family member has gained knowledge of part or all of the Sama Veda the student may aspire to learn from him some of that astonishing seven note score. The udgatr priest chanting alone, or becoming a choir with two of his three acolytes, employs the saman, chants in a musical scale, to extend, repeat, and draw out every possible ounce of meaningful sound from the basic Rg Vedic mantra it highlights. Most saman make use of mantras found in hymns from the ninth or eighth mandala of the Rg Veda. The udgatr hymnal is a gana, a collection of melodies essential for the most sacred of sacrifices, the soma. The gana generated from each saman-mantra can number in the thousands and no one claims mastery of all. Mitranarayana in Kakinada, a member of the Pisapati family in West Godavari, and the Kapilavayi brothers are among the last of the old guard with a longtime srauta heritage still capable of using a Sama-gana prayoga compilation that has been handed down through generations.
As noted in Chapter 2 (n. 8) the few remaining soma-sacrificing families highlight the significance of retaining coastal Andhra’s Sama-gana tradition and insist on its unique character and style, unlike recensions employed by Taittiriyins elsewhere in India. The Jaiminiya recension of Kerala is never mentioned. At stake are Kauthuma and Ranayaniya, versions considered by some Western scholars to be essentially the same. If they were identi
cal, however, there would not persist an enormously contentious matter in Konasima, the bitter charge that the Daksina (Southern) or Madras Sama gana, derived from the Kauthuma, was incorrectly imported to Andhra by the Dendukuri family, thus “contaminating” the age-old srauta tradition. Perhaps it is a composite of Ranayaniya gana in the “local” style. Lanka insisted that diluting Ranayaniya with Kauthuma elements was a dangerous mixing of tra ditions. Now that the elder Konasima ahitagni have passed on and a tradition of routinely held great sacrifices has moved west from Konasima to Krishna District it will be far more difficult to sustain that charge regarding the Sama gana role in yajna.12
Kapilavayi Yajnesvara Agnihotra Sastri, the itinerant collector of Vedas, went to live in Kasi (Varanasi) in order to learn all forty adhyaya of the Sukla (White) Yajur Veda, a Veda known also as the Vajasaneyi Samhita, concluding with the Isa Upanisad. Hereditary Vajasaneyins are as few in East Godavari today as Rg Vedins.13 Separation of pandits by sakha is not as severe as once was the case. Middle generation Vaidika Brahmans remember a time when
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interdining, sitting in the same line for food, was not possible between Taittiriyins and Vajasaneyins. Now, however, they may eat in the same hall. Honoraria for recitations were also unequal in the past, Vajasaneyins receiv ing only half as much, even when reciting the same text, as their syllabus was considered to be less demanding. And it is true that the Vajasaneya Samhita is perhaps half the length of the Taittiriya Samhita. Unlike the Krsna Yajur Veda that contains vidhi or brahmana portions, injunctions and commentar ies, mixed in with mantras and yajus formulas, these explicative passages are reserved in the White Yajur Veda corpus for the quite lengthy Brahmana, the Satapatha, the Brahmana “of a hundred paths.” An interesting if extremely derogatory Telugu epithet is used by Taittiriyins with regard to such sakha dis tinctions. Vajasaneyins of the Madhyandina recension of the Sukla Yajur Veda (not the Kanva branch) are known locally as madhyanna Malas, meaning they are Untouchable Malas until midday (Telugu madhyanna) when they suddenly become Brahmans. Such verbal antagonism may reflect an ancient dispute between the sakha in this region of South India.14
The Atharva Veda Samhita has two mostly similar recensions, Saunaka and Paippilada, of which the former is known in the delta. Like the Taittiriya Samhita, the text is arranged in kanda, collections, of sukta, hymns, 730 hymns assembled in twenty cycles, mostly metrical but containing some prose. There are no Atharva Veda hereditary families although more than a dozen individuals have received all or substantial portions of the Saunakiya recension of that fourth Veda, primarily for personal, not community-wide rituals. Pandits surveyed in Chapter 3 include Lanka who learned much of the Atharva Veda, his guru being Tangirila in Kapilesvarapuram. Duvvuri Yajulu also learned numerous portions, one reason being his need for mantras in a vain attempt to stave off increasing blindness from glaucoma. Neither of them learned hymn by hymn in a fashion that might be expected by an out side scholar, however, but rather by selection of anuvaka, portions of kanda, for specific ends. Lanka claimed the benefits of santi, peacefulness, pusti,
prosperity, and abhicara, by which he meant counter-sorcery or defensive charms that he recited to ward off an enemy’s malign intent. At one critical juncture he believed that Atharva Veda mantras saved his life. The Kapilavayi brothers also learned the Atharva Veda, Rama Sastri in order to serve in parayana in the Annavaram temple as an Atharva pandit, Venkatesvara in order to qualify as a catur-vedin and emulate his father’s record as knower of all four Vedas.
In addition to pursuing other vikrti of the Taittiriya Samhita or turning to Vedas in other sakha the young man with increasing abilities and an expanded resumé, thinking ahead to living with his wife and starting a family, may
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choose further studies with a pandit elsewhere in the agrahara or in another village or town, with a focus on one of the Vedangas, “limbs of Veda.” These texts, some as old as the fifth century bce, aphoristic in style, are designed as sciences to further transmission and understanding of the Vedas. Already mentioned are the Sutras of Apastamba, his Srauta, Grhya, and Dharma Sutras, respectively, manuals for sacrificial, domestic, and legal or traditional rituals. In the delta these are part of the standard curriculum. Popular options beyond Apastamba include Vyakarana, grammar, obviously significant for tex tual learning, particularly important in the transition from Vedic to Classical Sanskrit, and Jyotisa, astronomical and astrological reckoning to determine and interpret calendric time.
Less frequently studied are phonetics, prosody or metrics, and etymology, respectively, Siksa, Chandas, and Nirukta. Loosely counted as another limb is Mimamsa, inquiry into the meaning of the Veda, vedartha, going beyond mantras and precepts to contextualization. Duvvuri Surya Prakasa, as noted in Chapter 3, invested several years in post-graduate studies of the vidhi, injunc
tions that lie beneath ritual acts according to ritual theory in Mimamsa.15 He also studied Dharma Sastras, evolved from the earlier Dharma Sutras, reserv ing considerable attention for Manava Dharma Sastra, the Laws of Manu.
Certification from further studies in any of these branches of learn ing adds to credentials and increases authority when attending a local or regional pandit assembly, a sabha, for debates and exchanges of information on current Vedic events. If he becomes certified in the Apastamba texts for domestic rituals, often a father-to-son transmission of expertise for heredi tary clientele, he may also become a family purohita for other Brahmans, asked to conduct marriages, housewarmings, thread ceremonies, or other auspicious smarta (domestic) rites for small honoraria. This was a role that Bulusu Cayanulu fulfilled in Sriramapuram and one that Duvvuri Surya Prakasa still holds.
In lineages of srauta sacrificers a young pandit might be recruited into a role as rtvij, one of the staff of four priests necessary for fortnightly offerings known as isti on new- or full-moon days and annual harvest rites, or even one of the sixteen to eighteen priests in an extended rite such as a fire-altar construction lasting forty days. Kapilavayi Agnihotra Sarma served as rtvij in such a paundarika at the age of fourteen. Even after graduating from celi
bate studentship and becoming a householder the Veda pandit is engaged in post-graduate studies, the lifelong learning that is the mark of agrahara residents who never seem to cease their quest for knowledge. And of course “the Veda,” with scores of primary, acolyte, and commentarial texts, provides unbounded territory for exploration.
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