Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c13.10

c13.10

183. The opening and cadence of dimeter verse appear to be independent, and may therefore be discussed separately. The quantity of the first and last syllables being indifferent, each part of the verse has eight possible forms. In the opening three of these forms are relatively common, and may be distinguished as the normal form (◡ - - -), the iambic form (◡ - ◡ -), and the syncopated form (◡ ◡ - -): in all of these forms the fourth syllable is long. The ‘normal’ opening, as appears from the table, is predominant in every form of dimeter verse, usually including rather more than one-third of the whole number of verses. The ‘iambic’ opening is almost equally common with it in the early Anuṣṭubh group, and again in the odd verses in epic Anuṣṭubh: but in the other groups it is distinctly less common, and in the ‘reopening’ (§ 41) of epic Anuṣṭubh it is only rarely found. The ‘syncopated’ opening is rare in the early Anuṣṭubh and in the opening of the odd verses in epic Anuṣṭubh, but in the Gāyatrī groups it is comparable in frequency with the iambic opening, and in the reopening of epic Anuṣṭubh it is more than three times as common.