Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c5.s2.14

c5.s2.14

60. In other collections we find that two metres are almost exclusively employed, namely, Triṣṭubh and Gāyatrī, and that in these there is great regularity both of external and internal form. Such collections are i 1—11, 12—23, 24—30, iii, iv, and ix 1—97. Refrain verses and authors' names are very rare in these collections, the name of Kuśika being on the whole the most prominent: and in the metre there is little to differentiate one collection from another. It is natural to refer all these hymns to the same general period, and to conceive it as one in which perfection rather than originality of form was the aim. Such a period would seem to be necessarily later than that last described, and we name it provisionally the normal period.