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INTRODUCTION.
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antiquity pretty strongly. We may, therefore, embody the result of this part of the discussion in the proposition, that the Gitá is removed by a considerable linguistic and chrocological distance from classical Sanskrit literature. And so far as it goes, this proposition agrees with the result of our investigation of the first branch of internal evidence.
The next branch of that evidence brings us to the character of the versification of the Gîtå. Here, again, a survey of Sanskrit verse generally, and the verse of the Gita in particular, leads us to a conclusion regarding the position of the Gita in Sanskrit literature, which is in strict accord with the conclusions we have already drawn. In the verse of the Vedic Samhitås, there is almost nothing like a rigidly fixed scheme of versification, no particular collocation of long and short syllables is absolutely neces. ury. If we attempt to chant them in the mode in which classical Sanskrit verse is chanted, we invariably come across lines where the chanting cannot be smooth. If we come next to the versification of the Upanishads, we observe some progress made towards such fixity of scheme as we bave alluded to above. Though there are still numerous lines, which cannot be smoothly chanted, there are, on the otber hand, a not altogether inconsiderable number which can be smoothly chanted. In the Bhagavadgità a still further advance, though a slight one, may, I think, be marked. A visibly larger proportion of the stanzas in the Gita conform to the metrical schemes as laid down by the writers on prosody, though there are still sundry verses which do not so conform, and cannot, accordingly, be chanted in the regular way. Lastly, we come to the Kavyas and Natakas—the classical literature. And here in practice we find everywhere a most inflexible rigidity of scheme, while the theory is laid down in a rule which says, that even másha may be changed to masha, but a break of metre should be avoided.' This survey of Sanskrit verse may, I think, be fairly treated as showing, that adhesion to the metrical schemes is one test of the chronological position of a work-the later the work, the
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