what is ingenuity in Vedic Chantings?

Totaling 100,000+ verses, the Vedas, for thousands of years, have been transmitted orally from one generation to the next. In that vein, one could argue that the Vedas that we hear today, may not be the same as the original. But such an argument is moot because the ancient rishis foresaw this very potential of alteration and came up with a built-in mechanism to prevent exactly that. And the way in which they did so can be described only as sheer mathematical ingenuity. To ensure that the Vedas remained unchanged in content, intonation, and inflection, a number of techniques of recitation with increasing complexity and difficulty were developed, including Jatapata.

The first is Samhita,the simplest form of recitation that approaches the mantra as it is,for example,"the sky is blue" (abcd).  Next is Padha, where each word is broken down, as in, "the/sky/is/blue" (a/b/c/d). Krama, the third technique, adds the first real level of difficulty into the recitation through a pattern of "the sky/sky is/is blue" (ab/bc/cd). 

Jatapatha, the first of the more challenging, alternates between a repetitious interposing and transposing of words to create a pattern of "the sky sky the the sky/sky is is sky sky is/is blue blue is is blue" (abbaab/bccbbc/cddccd). 

Between Jatapata and the last technique are six other techniques (called Mala, Shikha, Rekha, Dvaja, Danda and Ratha) that again are built-in combinations and permutations that have ensured that the order and words of the Vedas remain unchanged. 

The ultimate and most complex technique is called Ghanam. Its mind-boggling backwards and forwards pattern is, "the sky sky the the sky is is sky the the sky is/sky is is sky sky is blue blue is sky is blue" (abbaabccbaabc/bccbbcddcbbcd).

They are in total Eleven Techniques that are designed to recite vedic chantings. The students are first taught to memorize the Vedas using simpler methods like continuous recitation (samhita patha), word by word recitation (pada patha) in which compounds (sandhi) are dissolved and krama patha (words are arranged in the pattern of ab bc cd...); before teaching them the eight complex recitation styles.

A pathin is a scholar who has mastered the pathas. Thus, a ghanapaathin has learnt the chanting of the scripture up to the advanced stage of ghana. The Ghanapatha or the "Bell" mode of chanting is so called because the words are repeated back and forth in a bell shape. The sonority natural to Vedic chanting is enhanced in Ghana. In Jatapatha, the words are braided together, so to speak, and recited back and forth.

The samhita, pada and krama pathas can be described as the natural recitation styles or prakrutipathas. The remaining 8 modes of chanting are classified as complex recitation styles or Vikrutipathas as they involve reversing of the word order. The backward chanting of words does not alter the meanings in the Vedic (Sanskrit) language. 

All hymns in each Veda were recited in this way; for example, all 1,028 hymns with 10,600 verses of the Rigveda was preserved in this way. Each text was recited in a number of ways, to ensure that the different methods of recitation acted as a cross check on the other. 

In 2008, Vedic chantings are inscribed in list of intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO.