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Shiksha

Shiksha (Devanagari: शिक्षा IAST: śikṣā) is one of the six Vedangas, treating the traditional Hindu science of phonetics and phonology of Sanskrit.

Its aim is the teaching of the correct pronunciation of the Vedic hymns and mantras. The oldest phonetic textbooks are the Pratishakyas (prātiśākhya, a vrddhi abstract from Sanskrit prati-śākhā), describing pronunciation, intonation of Sanskrit, as well as the Sanskrit rules of sandhi (word combination), specific to individual schools or Shakhas of the Vedas.

The Pratishakhyas, which evolved from the more ancient Vedic Texts padapathas (padapāṭha) between c. 3100-800 BCE, deal with the manner in which the Vedas are to be enunciated. There are separate Pratishakhyas for each Veda. They are a complement to the books called Shiksha written by various authorities.

Five Pratishakhyas are preserved:

The Shiksha Texts and the Pratishakhyas led to a great clarity in understanding the surface structure of language. For clarity of pronunciation, they propose breaking up the large Vedic compounds into stems, prefixes, and suffixes. Certain styles of recitation (pāṭha) such as the jaṭāpāṭha involved switching syllables, repeating the last word of a line at the beginning of the next, and other permutations. In the process, a considerable amount of morphology is discussed, particularly regarding the combination of sequential sounds, which leads to the modalities of sandhi. An even more important discovery recorded in the Pratishakhya texts, particularly the Samaveda Pratishakhya, which is claimed to be the earliest), is an organization of the stop consonant sounds into a 5x5 varga or square: