◠ · ✦
Vedic Svara · वैदिकस्वराः
✦ · ◠
The oldest Sanskrit is sung, not spoken
In the Veda every syllable carries a pitch — high, low, or falling — and the pitch is part of the word. Change it and you change the meaning. This is why the Veda was transmitted by ear for three thousand years with the tones intact.
Three places for the voice to sit
Tap any of the three to hear the same syllable at that pitch
{{ c.sample }}
{{ c.name }}
{{ c.how }}
How the page shows it
Printed Vedic texts mark only two of the three. A small line under a syllable means low — anudātta. A small stroke above means falling — svarita. Anything unmarked is high — udātta, the tone that needs no sign because it is the default of the chant. Two marks are enough to recover the whole melody, which is a compression as neat as anything in Pāṇini. One extra name for the unmarked syllables that follow a falling one: they are called pracaya, and they are recited level, on the high note.
The first line of the Ṛgveda
The oldest surviving line of Indo-European verse, printed as it has always been printed — with its tones. Tap a syllable to hear it at its own pitch.
{{ lineShown }}
{{ lineIast }}
{{ lineEn }}
A note on the voice
What you hear here is a synthetic voice shifted up and down — enough to show the shape, nowhere near a real chant. Vedic recitation is learned mouth to ear from a teacher, and the schools that preserve it can still recite whole books forwards, backwards and interwoven as a checksum against error. Recorded human chant will replace these tones on this page.
One word, two pitches, two meanings
The grammarians tell this story to explain why the tones are not decoration. Tap either reading.
Tvaṣṭṛ asked for a son who would kill Indra. He got the accent wrong.
Performing the rite, he asked for a son who would be the slayer of Indra — इन्द्रशत्रु as a tatpuruṣa, accented on the last member. What he pronounced was the accent of the first member, which turns the same four syllables into “he whose slayer is Indra”. Vṛtra was born, and Indra killed him. The Mahābhāṣya, Patañjali's great commentary on Pāṇini, tells the story at the opening as its argument for why a priest must learn grammar: दुष्टः शब्दः स्वरतो वर्णतो वा मिथ्या प्रयुक्तः — a word misused in tone or in sound does not say what you meant.
Both readings heard: {{ heardBoth }}
·
The same two compound families you unpacked in Level 3 — tatpuruṣa and bahuvrīhi — here told apart by pitch alone. The stroke on these two cards marks which syllable carries the accent.