एषः उ एव साम वाक् वै साम एषः सा च अमः च इति तत् साम्नः सामत्वम् यद् वा एव समः प्लुषिणा समः मशकेन समः नागेन समः एभिः त्रिभिः लोकैः समः अनेन सर्वेण तस्मात् वा एव साम अश्नुते साम्नः सायुज्यम् सलोकताम् यः एवम् एतत् साम वेद
eṣaḥ u eva sāma vāk vai sāma eṣaḥ sā ca amaḥ ca iti tat sāmnaḥ sāmatvam yad vā eva samaḥ pluṣiṇā samaḥ maśakena samaḥ nāgena samaḥ ebhiḥ tribhiḥ lokaiḥ samaḥ anena sarveṇa tasmāt vā eva sāma aśnute sāmnaḥ sāyujyam salokatām yaḥ evam etat sāma veda
He is also the sāman: speech is sā, and he is ama; that is the nature of the sāman (sā + ama). And since he is equal (sama) to a gnat, equal to a mosquito, equal to an elephant, equal to these three worlds, equal to this all — therefore he is the sāman. He attains union with the sāman and a dwelling in the same world with it who knows the sāman thus.
83b57cfca22f · published Jul 27, 2026, 12:42:16 AM UTC
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The third name is sāman, the sacred chant, resolved into sā (speech, 'she') and ama ('he', the force of the breath): every chant is a couple of voice and breath, of word and life. By the same pair the Chāndogya expounded the sāman (1.6): sā the ṛc, ama the melody; a tune is the marriage of speech with prāṇa.
But the Bṛhadāraṇyaka adds a second, staggering derivation — from sama, "equal": the prāṇa is sāman because it is equal "to a gnat, to a mosquito, to an elephant, to the three worlds, to everything". The breath of a gnat and the breath of an elephant are one and the same Life, no greater in the great and no less in the small. This is a hymn to the equality of all that lives, seen from within: samatva, which the Gītā will call yoga and the mark of the wise who "look equally on a brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant" (BG 5.18), is sung here as a musical name of the prāṇa. He who knows this "is united with the sāman" — he joins a choir in which all the living are one note of Life.