Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c14.302

c14.302

The question therefore arises whether there is a direct historical connexion between the two former variations as occasionally found in the archaic period, and as frequently found in one or both of the later periods. Such a connexion seems highly improbable for ‘extended Triṣṭubh’ verses, in view of the great body of Triṣṭubh verse in which no such variations are found: but it cannot be so confidently denied for the ‘catalectic Jagatī’ variation, since in the intervening periods very few hymns were composed in Jagatī metre at all. But so far as the evidence goes, the ‘catalectic Jagatī’ verse was equally extinct in this period.