A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s2.28

v1.c8.s2.28

How much, in old Indian metres, everything depends on the number of syllables,¹ is proved by the oft-recurring speculations, in the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, on the mystical significance of the metres, where the mysticism of numbers comes into play, when, for example, it is said, with strange logic: "The words bhūmi (earth), antarikṣa (atmosphere), and dyu (sky) form eight syllables. A Gāyatrī-Pāda consists of eight syllables. Therefore he who knows the Gāyatrī gains the three worlds."² But that the metres play such a highly important part in the mysticism of ritual, that considered as divine beings, they even receive sacrifices,³ that mythology concern itself with them, especially with the Gāyatrī, which in the form of a bird fetches the Soma from heaven, that they are *created* like other beings by Prajāpati,¹—all this indicates the great age of these metres which were thought to have originated in times immemorial. Thus the age of the metres is also a proof of the age of the hymns themselves.²