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The contents herein are from a conversation I had over the phone with a friend of mine. Seems there was a Vedic school called "Chitoor Pathasala" in Palghat, situated in the border of Tamilnadu and Kerala. In the 18th and 19th centuries, students flocked to it from every corner of India to learn the Vedanta. It was reputed to be one of the finest schools ever. Today, the Pathasala has one teacher and three or four students. Few know of their existence. It has no patrons and none is willing to fund it. The Pathasala in Mysore during the nineteenth century boasted of many scholars in all schools of philosophy of the Vedanta. Today, I heard, it has two or three Madhva students learning the Rg Veda. The Benaras Hindu University used to have debates on the Vedanta in which the opponents argue only in Sanskrit. Extempore speaking competitions were held. There were many professors who could teach the philosophy, chanting, etc. of the Vedas. Today, there is a single person there who knows the Rg Veda. In Benaras, There is only one place that has Vedic scholars. It is the Hanuman Ghat, which has a good strength of South-Indians. There are about three scholars who have a student or two each. I have come across some references to the Sama Veda in the Vishnu Purana. It extols the Saman as the greatest among the Vedas. Today, there are only a handful of people who can chant the Sama Veda, let alone understand the philosophy contained within. Recently, there was a function held in Madras during Navaratri when some Sama Vedins were requested to recite in the Temple. They chanted for sometime, and not ten minutes later, silence followed. It was then discovered to the embarrassment of everyone that that was all that the Ghanapathis knew. So the rest of the evening continued with the Yajur Veda. I heard that many parts of the Sama Veda have disappeared. The origin of music is supposed to be from the Sama Veda. Bengal, I heard, produced a legendary scholar called Madhusudana Upadhyaya who was a renowned scholar in the Vedanta and Tarka. When I asked my friend whether he was really that great, he laughed and said,"Are you kidding? He is the greatest scholar produced by Bengal. Probably the greatest that India has produced in the past two or three hundred years." He lived in the twentieth century. Today in Bengal, there is none at all who can even chant the Vedas. Literally none. The only place in India that has any Vedic scholarship at all, I heard, is the Sringeri Math. There are three Upadhyayas(meaning "professor" in Sanskrit) and about fifteen students. Most of them are studying the Rg Veda. As my friend said, in a few years, even chanting of the Vedas would be history. What was handed down generation after generation as the nectar of spirituality is decaying so fast that there may be nothing at all soon.Already, in the north, there is almost none who knows the Vedas. The Maths established by Sankara, I hear, are in ruins in the North, East and the West. The one at Puri is almost empty. There is nothing going on there. It was too sad to hear what was happening. Especially the fact that a beautiful Veda like the Sama Veda is... Can someone please atleast take the trouble of recording the chants of the existing portions of the Sama Veda? It would be too sad if it fades into oblivion. After say another generation, Sama Veda might become merely a written text. What was once the greatest among the Vedas would be lifeless without the musical chant. Thanks, Kartik
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