Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c5.s2.22

c5.s2.22

66. The principle of alternation of short and long syllables is simple, and we may well believe that the Vedic bards could have carried it to mechanical perfection, had they so desired. But in addition they were guided by other metrical motives, some of which have been described above (§§ 34, 35). Above all, they were actuated by the desire to combine these motives, and thus give variety to their metre. We are not perhaps entitled to ascribe the ‘break’ of trimeter verse to a deliberate design of interrupting the iambic rhythm, because it is quite possible that the caesura and the two short syllables that follow it may have been earlier in date than any such rhythm. But the ‘cretic’ rhythm certainly suggests a deliberate aiming at variety of form: and if it be granted that the ‘epic’ Anuṣṭubh is based upon the Anuṣṭubh of the Rigveda proper, the motive of the change seems evidently to be the same.