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सवृत्तिकः कविदर्पणः
[INTRODUCTION
to give the definitions of all Vrttas, beginning with the Mātrā Vrttas in the 2nd Adhyāya. All this would show that in spite of the distinction suggested by Pingala and expressed by Dandin, the word Vștta is used indiscriminately to designate a Mātrā-chandas as well as a Varna-chandas, from the days of Pingala himself, even though Pingala, Jayadeva, Hemacandra and the author of the Kavidarpaņa try to restrict it to a Varnachandas only. Jānāśrayī, however, sticks to the distinction between Vịtta and Jāti, which it distinguishes at 5.1 as follows: Jāti is that which though the same can yet belong to many different Chandases. Chandas is one of the 26 varieties beginning with 'Uktā' etc. and it differs with the difference of the number of letters in a Pāda, so that one and the same Jāti, though possessed of the same number of Mātrās, may yet possess different number of total letters and thus belong to different Chandases. On the other hand, a Vștta can belong to one Chandas alone, as it can have always the same number of letters. Ratnamañjūṣā does not allude to this distinction anywhere. Probably these efforts suggest an older tradition according to which the non-Vedic metres were called Vịttas as distinguished from the Vedic metres which are always called Chandāmsi, which is surely an older word often occurring in the Vedic literature. For a long time, it would appear that the Mātrā Vșttas were unknown to Sanskrit prosody, the unit Mātrā being foreign to the Vedic and postVedic Sanskrit prosody. This metrical unit appears to have been suggested to early Sanskrit poet-metricians from the Prakrit Mātrā-Tāla Vrttas, which presuppose a Kāla Mātrā first and then a corresponding Varna Mātrā. A Varņa Mātrā, no doubt, was known in the times of the Prātiśākhyas, as representing the smallest syllabic quantity which can be pronounced in the shortest unit of time, i.e., a Kāla Mātrā; but its use as a metrical unit must be regarded as subsequent to the introduction of the Aryā into the fold of Sanskrit metres.15 To return to the contents of the 3rd chapter : In v. 3 of the chapter, Sesa Vșttas are mentioned as distinct from the Dandakas; but both these are those metres which contain more than 26 letters in each of their four Pādas. There is, however, an important distinction between the Dandakas and the Sesa Vịttas. The latter are just like the other Varna Vșttas, having a certain order of short and long letters at definite places. But the Dandaka is much different and discloses its origin in popular Dance Poetry. The lines of a Dandaka contain the same Aksara Gana repeated several times in succession, after the initial five or six short letters, or sometimes, even without them. Thus
15. See Apabhramśa Metres III, para 11.
