What I know from my personal experience is that the same meter is recited with slightly different melodies in different regions, and occasionally the same meter is recited differently in the same region depending upon the context. A good example of this is the meter Śārdūlavikrīdita. It is recited in the region of Maharashtra at least in two different styles in different contexts. There is one style of recitation of verses in this meter that are part of the so called Maṅgalāṣṭaka verses recited during weddings, and a different style in other contexts. One can get a sense of this variation from recordings available on resources like the YouTube. It is not clear to me how one would go about finding traces of such variation in pre-modern periods.
Madhav M. Deshpande Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India [Residence: Campbell, California, USA] On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 9:01 AM Reich, James David via INDOLOGY < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear colleagues, > > I'm wondering if anyone is aware of any resources related to the history > of the simple melodies that are attached to various Sanskrit and Prakrit > meters. Is anything known about this? Do we know how old the melodies are, > or when or how they originated, or how they have changed over the > centuries? Secondary material would be particularly helpful, but if there > is any primary material that would be helpful as well. Or simply if anyone > knows anything about this or has any thoughts on it, I would be very > curious. > > Thanks very much, > James Reich > > _______________________________________________ > INDOLOGY mailing list > [email protected] > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology >
_______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected] https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
