Who can recit Vedas

[Guest guest]

Swamiji recently said o this list:

 

The only restriction persists with the Ve:da as to where andwhen who and in what

manner it should be read. Infact, people are not at all following those rules

 

Priya Sri Swamiji,

 

I have seen various different opinions on this topic even in the sastras. Could

you please tell us specifically which sastras that you hold to be most

authoritative and accurate on this topic.

 

Firstly, can you define "Vedas" in this context. Do you mean the three (Rg,

SAma, Yajur) or 4 (including Atharva Angirasa as Atharva Veda) or do you also

include Brahmanas (Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad).

 

Also please distinguish between four different types of recitation:

1) Reading silently

2) Reading out loud but with no meter or svara

3) Recitation with meter and svara

4) Recitation with various vikrti

 

Then please define who is formally permitted to do these types of recitation.

 

Also if a person is "permitted" what action should that person do (for example,

upanayana. take bath before, wear dhoti, etc.) in order to "enliven" that

"permission."

 

Since you have often encouraged people to read the source text in Sanskrit, it

would be very nice to hear both your summary of the rules and to have specific

quotations from sastras with reference to specific verse and number. If you can

give electronic text as attachment , I suggest for you to use Microsoft Word and

"save as" version 95/06 so that most people can read it. (you could alsoo save

as RTF format, be sure to use file extension .rtf if you do.) You could also

use one of the fonts on your CD-ROM (Shree701 for Devanagari or Shree900 for

Telegu script)

 

This is such and important topic, you might consider later putting a more

extended discussion with references on your web site.

 

Jai Sriman Narayana