SatyaVeda: All about the Veda

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Do Vedic Swaras impact Vedic Meaning?

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In spoken english, telugu and many other languages, the intonation contributes very significantly to the meaning.

An imperative “come here!” is different from an inquiring “come here?” and a sarcastic ” come here?” and so on.

I have always wondered on the wisdom of reading or attempting translations that do not take swaras into account. *When translating telugu keerthanas of Thyagayya or Annamacharya do we take the raaga, intonations and pauses into account consciously or unconsciously? My favorite example of the importance of pauses is “together” and “to get her”.

The school of translators, who follows sAyaNAcArya, accept his way of splitting the rk or the mantra into pAdAs and padAs. Did he take the swaras into account? Surely a VedAcArya like himself must have done so.. or at least must have been able to do so.. else why was he commissioned to do this work?

Max Mueller worked from manuscripts sitting in the EIC library in England. David Frawley actually learnt the Vedas and and the Vedangas and so on and became a VEdAcArya. So there is a LOT of difference in their insights, translations and paradigms. Sri Aurobindo meditated on the meanings of the sounds themselves.

Thus far, I have not much taken swarAs into account when attempting a translation, but I have followed the pada pATa of people who possible have taken such things into consideration.

*rA rA mA intidAkA OR rA rAmA intidAka.. this kind of thing…

Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula

Written by Satya

March 25, 2010 at 2:40 am

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