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छन्दोऽनुशासनम्। long letters comes first and the one containing all short letters comes last of all. As regards the vowel symbols, long vowels must stand at the end of the first four and short vowels at the end of the last four Trikas as required by the rules of the Prastāra. Thus he has chosen ā, e, au and i respectively at the end of the first four and a, u, ? and i respectively at the end of the last four Trikas. All these considerations have determined the final form of his Trikas and so he has put the letter m at the beginning of the first and n at the beginning of the second Trika. The second consonant in the first Trika is to be y and the same in the second Trika is to be r as explained above. The third consonant in the first Trika is to be k and the same in the second Trika is to be c; thus the first and second Trikas are māyākā and narauce. In the next two Trikas the 2nd and the 3rd consonants are respectively 1, t, and v, p as explained above, while the first consonant is the same as the second, there being no special purpose for the first. Thus we get lälitau and vivapi for our third and the fourth Trikas. In the last four, Trikas the first and the second consonants are but the repetition of the last one for the same reason, the shortness or the length of their vowels being determined by the nature of their place in the Prastāra. Accordingly we have śāśāśa, şişesu, sasvasy, and hahahi as the last four Trikas. It will be seen that though the length or shortness of the vowels of the first two letters in these Trikas is determined by the Prastāra, the exact yowel seems to have been employed by the author without any apparent principle, possibly with a view to variety only. As regards the Mātrā Gaņas, the Ratnamañjūsā, like the Jānāśrayi, employs the same symbol for both a short letter and a Mātrā, and its symbol for a group of 4 Mātrās is the consonant g, as against the term gana of the Jānāśrayi, thus showing the influence of the latter on the former. Ratnamañjūşā does not mention any Pañcamātra Gaņas, as it does not define any popular Mātrā Vịttas, like the Jānāśrayi. Further, the Jānāśrayi employs the consonant n with the vowel series (consisting of 16 vowels including 2 rs and 2 ls), to convey the serial number of the letter in a Pada of a metre, after which the Yati is prescribed. Thus nu, nr and nl respectively signify that the Yati is to be observed after the 5th, the 7th and 9th letter respectively. Ratnamañjūsā uses the consonant d for the same purpose in the same way, but it also makes use of it for conveying the serial number of a letter or a Gaņa in the Pädas of a metre. Thus trtiyo l of the Jānā
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