The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.85

v1.c17.85

In its metrical form the Rigveda shows traces of the distinction between the recitative of the Hotṛi and the song of the Udgātṛi²: thus besides hymns in simple metres, rhythmical series of eight syllables, three or four times repeated, or eleven or twelve syllables four times repeated, are found strophic effects made up of various combinations of series of eight and twelve syllables, these being intended for Sāman singing. The verse technique has risen beyond the state of the mere counting of syllables which it shared as regards the use of eight and eleven syllable lines with the Irānian versification; but the process of fixing the quantity of each syllable, which appears fully completed in the metres of classical Sanskrit verse, is only in a rudimentary state, the last four or five syllables tending to assume in the case of the eight and twelve syllable lines an iambic, in the case of the eleven syllable lines a trochaic cadence. The poetry of the collection is of very uneven merit: Varuṇa and Ushas evoke hymns which now and then are nearly perfect in poetic conception and expression; but much of the work is mechanical and stilted, being overladen with the technicalities of the ritual: this condemnation applies most heavily to the ninth book, which, consisting as it does of hymns addressed to the Soma in the process of its purification for use, is arid and prosaic to a degree. In style, practically all the hymns are simple enough, and their obscurity, which is considerable, is due to our ignorance of the Vedic age, which renders unintelligible references and allusions clear enough to the authors. But there is unquestionably much mysticism in the later hymns and still more of that confusion of thought and tendency to take refuge in enigmas, which is a marked feature of all Indian speculation.