Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 561

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
XCV
however, the final påda, too, in Ânushtubha metre is allowed greater freedom, and the rule, as above given, is strictly maintained with regard to the Traishtubha and Gågata pâdas only.
This subject is so important, and affects so large a number of passages in the Veda, that it requires the The four prin- most careful examination. The Vedic metres.
cipal Pâdas. though at first sight very perplexing, are very simple, if reduced to their primary elements. The authors of the Prátisåkhyas have elaborated a most complicated system. Counting the syllables in the most mechanical manner, they have assigned nearly a hundred names to every variety which they discovered in the hymns of the Rig-veda". But they also observed that the constituent elements of all these metres were really but four, (Sutras 988, 989):
1. The Gayatra pada, of eight syllables, ending in u-.. 2. The Vairaga pâda, of ten syllables, ending in -- 3. The Traishtubha påda, of eleven syllables, ending
in -- 4. The Gagata pada, of twelve syllables, ending in un
Then follows an important rule, Satra 990: ‘The penultimate syllable,' he says, 'in a Gâyatra and Gågata pada is light (laghu), in a Vairâga and Traishtubha pâda heavy (guru). This is called their vritta.
This word vritta, which is generally translated by metre, had evidently originally a more special meaning. It meant
the final rhythm, or if we take it literally, the Vritta - versus. turn of a line, for it is derived from vrit, to turn. Hence vritta is the same word as the Latin versus, verse; but I do not wish to decide whether the connection between the two words is historical, or simply etymological. In Latin, versus is always supposed to have meant originally a furrow, then a line, then a verse. In Sanskrit the metaphor that led to the formation of vritta, in the sense of final rhythm, has nothing to do with ploughing. If, as I have tried to prove (Chips from a German Workshop,
* See Appendix to my edition of the Prátisâkhya, p. ccxlvi.
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