A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c7.3

c7.3

That difference of metre should form a broad line of demarcation between two periods of literature, is not at all without an analogy in the literary history of other nations, particularly in older times. If once a new form of metre begins to grow popular by the influence of a poet who succeeds in collecting a school of other poets around him, this new mode of utterance is very apt to supersede the other more ancient forms altogether. People become accustomed to the new rhythm sometimes to such a degree, that they lose entirely the taste for their old poetry on account of its obsolete measure. No poet, therefore, who writes for the people, would think of employing those old-fashioned metres; and we find that early popular poems have had to be transfused into modern verse in order to make them generally readable once more.