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छन्दोऽनुशासनम् । two kinds with a uniform time-unit in the production of this type of metrical music necessitated the use of a corresponding uniform unit in the case of the Aksaras, a unit which could help the correct measurment of these when employed in such a metrical line. This unit may be called the Akşara Mātrā as opposed to the time unit, which may be called the Kāla Mātrā for the sake of distinction. The general mode of pronouncing the two kinds of Akşaras shows that a long Akşara takes double the time which is taken by a short Akşara in its pronunciation. This means that the syllabic content of a short Aksara is one Akşara Mātrā and that of the long one is two Aksara Mātrās and further that short and long Akşaras could be employed on the basis of their syllabic content to produce a metrical music controlled by a time unit. It should be clearly understood that this time-controlled metrical music was essentially a popular one and the uneducated bards who had a natural talent for word music and for a selection and employment of appropriate words for that purpose sometimes neglected the grammatical correctness of the pronumciation of their words or their constituent Akşaras, not much caring for the usual proportion of the syllabic content of an Akşara with the time taken for its correct pronunciation. Such lapses naturally offended the succeptibilities of the educated Sanskrit Pandits, who indeed very much liked this type of metrical music, but were not prepared to sacrifice their conventionally and grammatically correct pronunciation of short and long Akşaras, which respectively took one and two time moments or Kāla Mātrās. It is briefly in this manner that the advent of the Akşara Mātrā. and the Caturmātra Gaņa in the field of classical Sanskrit prosody is, I think, to be explained. Yet it is a fact that this time-controlled music was never wholly adopted by Sanskrit prosodists, though their adoption of the Mātrā unit led to the origin of a few metres like the Mātrāsamaka and the Aryā groups of metres. Pingala's Chandahsāstra defines only these two groups of Mātrā Vịttas and one more group, namely, the Vaitāliya group which, however, is a group of mixed Mātrā - Varņa Vrttas. Like Bharata, Pingala too defines only these three groups of the Mātrā Vșttas and prescribes only the Caturmātra Gana for the construction and scansion of these; he is closely followed by other writers on Sanskrit metres, who came after him.
13. The origin of Classical Prākrit prosody is thus to be traced to the adoption of the Aksara Mātrā and the Caturmātra
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