A History of Sanskrit Literature c6.41

c6.41

Four of these eight-syllable lines combine to form the *anushṭubh* stanza, in which the first two and the last two are more closely connected. In the *Rigveda* the number of stanzas in this measure amounts to only about one-third of those in the *gāyatrī*. This relation is gradually reversed, till we reach the post-Vedic period, when the *gāyatrī* is found to have disappeared, and the *anushṭubh* (now generally called *çloka*) to have become the predominant measure of Sanskrit poetry. A development in the character of this metre may be observed within the *Rigveda* itself. All its verses in the oldest hymns are the same, being iambic in rhythm. In later hymns, however, a tendency to differentiate the first and third from the second and fourth lines, by making the former non-iambic, begins to show itself. Finally, in the latest hymns of the tenth book the prevalence of the iambic rhythm disappears in the odd lines. Here every possible combination of quantity in the last four syllables is found, but the commonest variation, nearly equalling the iambic in frequency, is ⏑ – – ⏑. The latter is the regular ending of the first and third line in the post-Vedic *çloka*.