Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c13.18

c13.18

184. Except in Trochaic Gāyatrī and the ‘semi-cadence’ (§ 41) of epic Anuṣṭubh, there is only one regular form of cadence in dimeter verse, namely the iambic form ◡ - ◡ ◡. In the lyric and early Anuṣṭubh groups all the variations from this standard taken together hardly amount to one-tenth of the whole number of instances: in the Gāyatrī groups they are only one-thirtieth, and finally in the full cadence of epic Anuṣṭubh only one-hundredth part of the whole. In every one of the groups the variation which differs from the iambic form only by shewing a short sixth syllable is about as common as all the other variations taken together.