Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c14.9

c14.9

The habit of ascribing the metrical variations of the Rigveda to chance is the necessary result of imperfect familiarity with the details. The critic of metre who has convinced himself that chance is a totally inadequate explanation of the facts presented to him will feel bound to look for some other cause or causes. And since the phonetic structure of the Vedic dialect is obviously pliable in the extreme to the hand of the poet, he will necessarily fall back upon the conclusion that the variations which occur are due to changes of metrical taste: and whether these changes are conscious or unconscious, the product of the time or of the individual, they belong in a broad sense to the region of historical investigation.