shakha
शाखा śākhāA 'branch': a recension or school of transmission of a Veda. Many shakhas once existed; most are now lost.
Where this term appears
- How the Vedas Were Preserved History
The Veda was never a single book but a great tree of shakhas , "branches," each a distinct school with its own exact recension, its own accents, its own ritual uses.
- Keeping the Sound Treatise
The name tells you their function: a Pratishakhya is the phonetic and sandhi (sound-combination) manual tied to one shakha , one branch or recension of the Veda.
- The Katha Upanishad: the boy who questioned Death Treatise
This is that." (Katha 2.6.1, tr. Müller) Urdhva-mulo 'vak-shakha : root above, branches below.
- The Library Without Walls Treatise
…patha permutations, is still transmitted teacher to student in living shakha lineages, the surviving "branches" of the Veda, each one a distinct line of transmission carried in human memory.
- The Machine Made of Memory Treatise
The shakhas, and the honesty the topic demands Here the chapter has to slow down and be careful, because the popular version of this story tends to overstate it.
- The Rules of the Rite Treatise
They were composed school by school, and a given Vedic shakha would carry its own matched set, its Shrauta-sutra and Grihya-sutra and the rest, attached to its own recension of the hymns.