Vedic Metre in its Historical Development c5.s2.25

c5.s2.25

69. In all these cases it is not hard to recognize that apparent irregularity is the result of the inventive spirit, sometimes leading to the construction of new and harmonious forms, sometimes apparently ending in failure. This observation cannot fail to suggest reserve and care before bringing forward any suggestions of incompetence against the versifiers or of carelessness against the editors of our text. It is difficult to think that a professional bard should without motive have left his verse with an irregular rhythm, when any European scholar, without serious practice of the art of versification, can put it into order for him with hardly a perceptible alteration in the meaning. It is also difficult to think that professional reciters and their instructors could by mere accident have left stanzas in a shape which must make them a perpetual burden to the memory. In these ‘irregularities’ there may be meanings not easily recognized, and for this reason they deserve to be carefully studied.