Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c17.22

c17.22

With regard to dimeter verse, it is easy to see that our work is less successful. Epic Anuṣṭubh is happily for our purpose sufficiently distinguished by its external form, and therefore only a very small amount of dimeter verse appears in the Table as belonging to the cretic and popular periods, and for this the metrical evidence is of little value. In the earlier periods the grouping is most successful with regard to the lyric metres, in which it is guided by the trimeter variations. Here for instance we see that the dimeter verses of the group i 127–135, just as its trimeter verses, contain almost twice as many early variations as those of the Kaṇva lyric hymns. From this assured starting-point we go on to notice that the dimeter hymns of the early part of Maṇḍala v, and those of the group x 20–26, are undoubtedly of the archaic period, whilst the dimeter hymns of the Kaṇva groups correspond precisely to the dimeter verses of the lyric hymns of the same groups. It seems also probable that the section i 24–30 belongs to the strophic period. In the other groups the results seem fairly consistent, with the striking exception of the Soma Pavamāna groups ix 1–60, 61–67 30. In these large groups the metre has the regularity of the normal period, whilst the language has the variety of the archaic period. This contradiction is with our present knowledge insuperable, but the metrical evidence seems to be far the more important of the two.