Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c13.177

c13.177

Statistics perform a useful purpose in counteracting errors which arise from acquired prepossessions, and are not necessarily eliminated even by wide reading. Thus many Vedic scholars, having discovered an ‘iambic rhythm’ in dimeter verse, conclude that the third syllable is preferably short, either in the sense that it is more often short than long, or that the poets would at least wish it to be so if they were not hindered by intractable material.