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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[August, 1915
for the establishing of the chronology of a text than some grammatical form or sandhi rule. The latter after all may be due to a certain external bias, such as f. i. the common usage of the particular school to which the text belongs. There is, though, as far as we can see, no trace of such influence on metre. On the other hand, we must bear in mind that we are not to trust exclusively statistical figures obtained from metre which, though they be more reliable than merely grammatical evidence, yet are more subject to some chance. influence than, say, the general trend of ideas in a book. And finally the laws of logic would require that chronological conclusions drawn from metrical evidence are not to be applied to the whole book, if only part of the verse has been inquired into. For the latter reason our case is not quite so bad as it might appear at first sight. For in the second adhyâya, fourth valli of the Katha Up., there are 12 pathyâs to 4 Vedic anushtubhs. A similar inequality of verse type is to be observed in the verse of Aitareya Brahmaņa VIII., the lines of VIII. 21. 22 approaching the modern type, those of VIII. 23 revealing a more ancient character. Whether we are to infer from this alone a different age of the verse and the text, is, of course, quite another question. Here too as in the case of the trishubh-jagati verse our Upanishad does not come up to the proportion of the Dhammapada where the Vedic form has almost wholly disappeared.
Examining these metrical facts we always assume a more or less steady evolution of the Vedic metre. This granted, we draw the final conclusion that our Upanishad was composed at a time nearer to the end than the beginning of the period of transformation, considerably later than certain hymns of Rigveda X, among which is the Purushasákta, and later also than the verse of the Sunahsepa episode as related in Aitareya Brahmana VII. The anushtubh line, then, leads to the same results as the trishtubh-jagati type, and we find the common chronological order in this special case confirmed.24
The comparison between the numbers of the pathyâs (58) and the feet of the vipulâ shape25 (12) shows that our text contains a relatively larger number of pathyas than Rigveda X, 90. 1-15 ; 97 ; 135-137, and Aitare ya Brâhmaya VII. The proportions are in Rigveda 30 p. against 37 v. ; in Aitareya Brahmara 14 p. to 26 v. Almost equal relative figures as by the MNU, are shown by Katha Up. I, (39 p., 8 v.) and Sankhayana Grihyasútra (30 p., 5 v.). The author of the MNU. followed in this the fashion of his time tending towards the pathya. But in this case too it may perhaps have been a breaking away from the ordinary rigid pada and a looser handling of the metre rather than a definite plan to fashion a new type. And it would seem to be no more than a mere coincidence that his lines show almost the same proportion between pathyâs and vipulâs as Mágha's poem does.
In the frequency of the various forms of vipulâs our text differs both from the Vedic texts mentioned above and the classical texts. Out of 13 vipulas only 5 observe the laws regulating the shape of the first foot, as against eight which neglect them. Nor is this surprising, for it is not likely that the rules about the combination of the first and second foot should have been definitely settled at the time of our composition, and if the author of the Taittiriya Aranyaka X. had known them at all, they must have appeared to the philosopher as a minor detail. The same remark will serve as an excuse for the amphimacer in syllables 2, 3, and 4 of the second pâda in 3. 8, 15; 4. 4;26 15. 3 asma and the anapaest in 5. 3a, used against the rules of classical prosody.
The scantiness of the material prevents us from drawing further conclusions ; those proposed here may perhape serve to show the possibility and applicability of a method of relative chronology in the Upanishads and prove a starting point for further research. • 2 The use of the earlier gayatri (in MNU, khanda 3) which in later times was almost altogether aupareaded by the anushtubh should not form an objection to this conclusion. The MNU. took th: chvatr metre from the Maitrdyani Sarshita after which the third khanda has been compiled.
25 The rules regulating thu shape of the first and second foot not always being kept, the term vipula is used here in a wider sense.
25 Correct only in MSS. AA BCLE
