Sama Veda Dictionary

 Sama Veda: The third and most poetic of the Vedas, whose mantras are to be sung during the sacrificial fire ceremonies. It contains the Chandogya and Kena Upanishads.

(See also:  Sama Veda , Hinduism, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Sama Veda (Sanskrit). Lit., "the Scripture, or Shastra, of peace". One of the four Vedas.

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Sama Veda: Veda of song

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Sama Veda:

Sama Veda. Veda of chants. One of the four Vedas.

(See also: Sama Veda , Tantra, Tantra Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sama-veda:

One of the four Vedas. (See Vedas)

(See also: Sama-veda , Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

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sama veda:

'knowledge of Chants', one of the four vedas

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Sama-Veda (Sanskrit) The Veda of chants (samans); one of the three principal Vedas. Many of the hymns of the Rig-Veda are found in the Sama-Veda, modified so as to be better adapted for chanting, especially during the ceremonies of the soma sacrifices. The rhythms to be chanted to the arrangement of verses found in the Sama-Veda are given in a special treatise.

The Sama-Veda is mystically described as having come forth from or been inspired by the sun. It is said by Hindu Vedic specialists to have reference to the pitris (ancestors), while the Rig-Veda has the gods as its object, and the Yajur-Veda men as its object.

(See also: Sama-Veda , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

sama veda:

veda of chants. One of the four vedas.

(See also: sama veda , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sama Veda

One of the four Vedas, the original revealed scriptures. It contains sacred musical compositions based mostly on the hymns of the Rig Veda and employed in the more elaborate Vedic sacrifices, the soma-yajnas.

(See also: Sama Veda , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sama-veda:

Sama-veda (Saama-vedha). Collection of Vedic hymns appropriate for singing as liturgies.Sambara (Shambara). Leader of the demons who possessed great magical powers; killed by Dasaratha.

(See also: Sama-veda , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Veda (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root vid to know]

Knowledge; the most ancient and sacred Sanskrit works of the Hindus. Almost every hymn or division of a Veda is ascribed to various authors. It is generally believed that these subdivisions were revealed orally to the rishis or sages whose respective names they bear; hence the body of the Veda is known as sruti (what was heard) or divine revelation. The very names of these Vedic sages, such as Vasishtha, Visvamitra, and Narada, all of which belong to men born in far distant ages, shows that millennia must have elapsed between the different dates of their composition.

Krishna Sastri Godbole proves by astronomical data and mathematics that the Vedas must have been taught at least 25,000 years ago (cf Theosophist 2:238). Hindus claim that the Veda was taught orally for thousands of years, and then finally compiled by Veda-Vyasa 3,200 years ago, on the shores of the sacred lake Manasa-sarovara beyond the Himalayas in what is now Tibet (TG 362). Though compiled at that date their previous antiquity is sufficiently proved by the fact that they are written in an ancient form of Sanskrit, different from the Sanskrit of known later writings.

There are four Vedas: the Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda, this last commonly supposed to be of later date than the former three. The Laws of Manu always speaks of the three Vedas. The Rig-Veda is the original work, the Yajur-Veda and Sama-Veda in their mantric portions are different arrangements of its hymns for special purposes. The Vedas are divided into two parts, the Mantra and Brahmana.

The Mantra part is composed of suktas (hymns in verse); the Brahmana part consists of liturgical, ritualistic, exegetical, and mystic treatises in prose. The Mantra or verse portion is considered more ancient than the prose works; and the books in which the hymns are collected are called sanhitas (collections). More or less closely connected with the Brahmanans (and in a few exceptional cases with the Mantra part) are two classes of treatises in prose and verse called Aranyaka and Upanishad. The Vedic writings are again divided into two great divisions, exoteric and esoteric, the former called the karma-kanda (the section of works) and the latter the jnana-kanda (section of wisdom).

Subba Row in "Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principles in Man" (Theosophist 3:93) says: "The Vedas were perhaps compiled mainly for the use of the priests assisting at public ceremonies, but the grandest conclusions of our real secret doctrine are therein mentioned. I am informed by persons competent to judge of the matter, that the Vedas have a distinct dual meaning -- one expressed by the literal sense of the words, the other indicated by the metre and the swara (intonation), which are, as it were, the life of the Vedas . . . the mysterious connection between swara and light is one of its most profound secrets."

(See also: Veda , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Sanskrit dictionary. From Advaita to Yoga.

Please note that all words in grey, like "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

A dictionary with common spiritual words from Hinduism and Sanskrit. Also see these links: Hinduism, Spirituality, Enlightenment, Spiritual Dictionary and Hinduism Dictionary.

A dictionary Of Siddha Yoga Terminology. From Abhanga to Yogini.

Please note that all words in grey, like "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

Çhandogya Upanishad: (Sanskrit) One of the major Upanishads, it consists of eight chapters of the Çhandogya Brahmana of the Sama Veda. It teaches the origin and significance of Aum, the importance of the Sama Veda, the Self, meditation and life after death. See: Upanishad.

(See also: Çhandogya Upanishad , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sama, Saman (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sam to be quiet, calm, resigned]

Tranquility, calmness, equanimity, absence of passion, emancipation from all the illusions of existence; the fifth of the eight bhava-pushpas (flowers of being) of Buddhism: self-restraint, charity, impersonal affection, veracity, meditation, patience, resignation, and selfless devotion. Through the practice of the eight flowers, sama secures the conquest and final delivery from all kinds of mental and psychological agitation.

Saman [from the verbal root Sam] has an almost identical meaning; also a particular kind of sacred text or verse intended to be chanted -- one of the four kinds of Vedic composition.

See also SAMA-VEDA

(See also: Sama, Saman , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Vedas:

The most sacred scriptures of the Hindus and the ultimate authority of the Hindu religion and philosophy. They were arranged by Vyasa into four books, namely, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. According to orthodox Vedic scholars the Vedas consist of the Mantras and the Brahmanas. The Mantras include the Samhita, and the Brahmanas include the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.

(See also: Vedas , Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

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A Theosophical definition of Veda (Vedas) :

Veda (Vedas)

(Sanskrit) From a verbal root vid signifying "to know." These are the most ancient and the most sacred literary and religious works of the Hindus. Veda as a word may be described as "divine knowledge." The Vedas are four in number: the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, this last being commonly supposed to be of later date than the former three.

Manu in his Work on Law always speaks of the three Vedas, which he calls "the ancient triple Brahman"  - sanatanam trayam brahma." Connected with the Vedas is a large body of other works of various kinds, liturgical, ritualistic, exegetical, and mystical, the Veda itself being commonly divided into two great portions, outward and inner: the former called the karma-kanda, the "Section of Works," and the latter called jnana-kanda or "Section of Wisdom."

The authorship of the Veda is not unitary, but almost every hymn or division of a Veda is ascribed to a different author or rather to various authors; but they are supposed to have been compiled in their present form by Veda-Vyasa. There is no question in the minds of learned students of theosophy that the Vedas run back in their origins to enormous antiquity, thousands of years before the beginning of what is known in the Occident as the Christian era, whatever Occidental scholars may have to say in objection to this statement. Hindu pandits themselves claim that the Veda was taught orally for thousands of years, and then finally compiled on the shores of the sacred lake Manasa-Sarovara, beyond the Himalayas in a district of what is now Tibet.

See also: Veda (Vedas) , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Gaana-veda:

Gaana-veda (Ghaana-vedha). Bell Veda, Name for the Sama-veda.

(See also: Gaana-veda , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vedas

Veda is a generic name for the most ancient Indian sacred literature, i.e. the Rg-veda, Yajur-veda, Sama-veda and Atharva-veda. Each of these books is divided into two portions, mantra and brahmana. The term Veda is generally reserved for the mantras or metrical hymns, especially those of the Rg-veda. Sri Aurobindo has translated and/or commented on many of the Vedic hymns. Most of his writings related to the Vedas have been collected in Volumes 10 and 11of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library(SABCL), The Secret of the Veda, and Hymns to the Mystic Fire.

"I propose...that the Rig-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed, for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the Gods.

The Veda...is an inspired knowledge as yet insufficiently equipped with intellectual and philosophical terms. We find a language of poets and illuminates to whom all experience is real, vivid, sensible, even concrete, not yet of thinkers and sytematisers to whom the realities of the mind and soul have become abstractions.

The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge.

Many of the lines, many whole hymns even of the Veda bear on their face a mystic meaning; they are evidently an occult form of speech, have an inner meaning.

Under pressure of the necessity to mask their meaning with symbols and symbolic words...the Rishis resorted to fix double meanings, a device easily manageable in the Sanskrit language where one word often bears several different meanings, but not easy to render in an English translation and very often impossible....The Rishis, it must be remembered, were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images which might precede or accompany an experience and put it in a concrete form, might predict or give an occult body to it. ...The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL Vol. 10

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)