Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c17.7

c17.7

255. The revised grouping of the hymns which is now proposed is indicated in the ‘Table of hymns’ which is appended to this chapter. The periods to which the respective hymns are referred are five in number, the ‘bardic period’ of Chapters I-III having been replaced since by the ‘archaic’ and ‘strophic’ periods. The difference in character between these two periods is perhaps most marked in the use of hiatus (§ 131), but it is very clear in every part of our subject, that is, in syllabic restoration (§ 153), in quantitative change (§ 180), in dimeter rhythm (§ 195) and in trimeter rhythm (§ 235). This difference, therefore, though it may pass unnoticed in a first review of the Rigveda, becomes on closer examination the plainest of all. The period to which a particular hymn is assigned is shewn by a capital letter in the left-hand column, the popular Rigveda being denoted as before by the asterisk.