Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c14.33

c14.33

(ii) That the syllable before the caesura, like the final syllable of the verse, is indifferent in quantity (syllaba anceps) is a theory as old as the Saṃhitā text itself, and finds expression in the systematic neglect to record the long vowels of certain endings in the position 4A (see especially § 176 ii). Western critics have also often inclined to this view. There is however no foundation for it in the usage of the poets: indeed the quantity of the fourth syllable is more strictly regulated in trimeter verse when the caesura follows than in dimeter verse where there is no caesura: and the quantity of the fifth syllable where the caesura follows is better marked than that of the third in the same verses, as appears from the Table (§ 212).