Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c12.31

c12.31

No precise inference is to be drawn from the distribution of final vowels as to the rhythm of the verse. In the first place, long final vowels are more common than short, and therefore in a given quantity of verse, appear in every position with relatively greater frequency than the table suggests. Further the final syllables which end with consonants are in a majority of instances made long by position, except when they occur at the end of the verse. Thus the long syllables in the positions 2T 2D, 2D, 4, exceed the short syllables in a much larger proportion than this table indicates, and those in the positions 3T, 3D are much more nearly equal in number to the short syllables which occur there.