Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c13.23

c13.23

The special cadence of Trochaic Gāyatrī can most easily be explained as borrowed from Triṣṭubh metre. This explanation would also account for the comparative frequency of catalectic verses in this metre. It is therefore convenient to treat ‘catalectic’ verses as shewing a variation of cadence, and the statistics indicate that ‘heptasyllabic’ verses should be treated in the same way.