Human beings have been practicing songs since prehistoric times. Once word had first started to form through the human mouth, songs followed close behind, somewhat like the “u” that follows “q”. Even in the first mańd́ala of the ancient Rgveda, we find songs primarily in long and elongated voices. In the Yajurvedic age also we find songs in short, long and elongated forms. In the Atharvaveda as well, we come across songs – chiefly in short and long voices– although we can not say that elongated forms are totally absent.

Vedic songs and modern songs are different in their themes. The beat or sequence of strokes has undergone changes, and new musical instruments have been invented. The viiń of the Vedic Age has metamorphosed into various stringed instruments.⁽¹⁾ These instruments, in synchronization with delicate human voices, have spread the sweetness of music through the atmosphere and the firmament across the horizon. Singing a song certainly requires the use of the uvula (lambiká, kushańd́iká, alijihvá, galashuńd́iká). As the uvula came under strain at the time of singing, in ancient times, just as today, the uvula and other parts of the throat contracted diseases and become painful. In the remote past, people tied gossamer or pashm to the end of a slender stick, dipped it into warm honey and anointed the uvula and other affected parts of the throat.⁽²⁾ Some people used warm or fresh ghee in the same way. It is difficult to say definitively whether people of the Rgvedic Age were familiar with black pepper; however, they certainly became familiar with it in the Yajurvedic Age. During the Rgvedic Age people inhabited the cold regions. To them, threads meant gossamer or pashm. The Hindi word un has its origin in the word urńa (gossamer), the etymology being urńá > uńńá > uńa. The use of nasal ́n’ (n) in the Hindi word una is, therefore, a mistake. The cerebral ́n’ (ń) ought to be used.

Pashm is a Persian word. Pashm means gossamer or fleece, but in Persian it means hair of all kinds.

In any case, the people of the Vedic age were familiar with gossamer. Hence at the time of observing last rites, people of bygone times used to offer gossamer in the name of offering cloth to the departed souls. In that age, during the Vedic rituals pertaining to the rites of yajiṋopaviita [the wearing of sacred threads as religious symbols], the practice of using threads was not in vogue, because cotton (kárpás) was then unknown to people. To serve the purpose of yajiṋopaviita, they would use a wild animal’s skin or sheepskin with little gossamer on the left shoulder.

Yes, probably in the Yajurvedic Age, people first came into contact with cotton. Kárpás (cotton) is a Sanskrit word of Middle Age which intrinsically meant a material with which something is fastened. From kárpás has come the word kápás. In Hindi, it is kapás and in Marathi, it is kápus. The indigenous word for kápás in Angika and Maithili is báuṋgá.

Yes, hence in the Yajurvedic age, if a singer, male or female, suffered from sore throat, they used to fasten cotton to a slender stick or coconut stick (the indigenous Bengali word for coconut stick is khyángrá), soak it in warm ghee or black pepper powder and use it to rub the affected parts of the throat [as throat-paint]⁽³⁾.

Footnotes

(1) Shiva, who invented viiń, “was born during the last part of Rgvedic age and the first part of the Yajurvedic age.” –Trans.

(2) See also “The Cosmic Ideation and Unit Ideation of Rágas and Rágińiis”, and see four paragraphs below. –Trans.

(3) See also “The Cosmic Ideation and Unit Ideation of Rágas and Rágińiis”, and see four paragraphs above. –Trans.