Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c15.50

c15.50

245. Almost the whole of the lyric verse in the Rigveda, and a large proportion of the dimeter hymns, shew a system of grouping of stanzas. The most common grouping is that of three stanzas to make a metrical unit, the hymn consisting of any number of such units. Owing to the disconnected character of the Vedic poems, it might not always be easy to trace this grouping by the meaning: but it is easily recognized by the great number of hymns in which the number of stanzas is some multiple of 3, and by the fact that changes of metre so commonly take place after each third stanza.