Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c14.8

c14.8

As however the number of chances is decreased, this certainty is diminished. In a short Vedic hymn, for instance, containing some 20 verses it is not impossible that the initial syllable should be twice as often long as short. Such cases however will not often be found: and any theory that might be built upon them would soon be abandoned as the result of further enquiry. In the present chapter (as indeed in those that have preceded it) we shall find it from time to time necessary to deal with small quantities of matter, in which the variations that occur may quite possibly be due to chance. But the uncertainties of the particular case do not produce a like uncertainty in the general conclusions to which we are led. If the survey of the facts be on the whole sufficiently wide, the errors in detail must necessarily be relatively unimportant.