________________
IV
(See Appendix III for Jinaprabha's definitions and the Stava).
29. In paragraphs 1 and 2 of this introduction, I have discussed the source of the definitions given by Jinaprabha in his commentary on Nandişeņa's Ajita-Santi Stava. Here in the following paragraphs, I propose to discuss the metres which are actually employed in the Stava. In determining the nature of the metrical structure of a line as known to Jinaprabha, I have sometimes taken the assistance of the Rṣabha-Vira Stava, which is composed in very close imitation of Nandişena's hymn by Santicandra and which is published by W. Schubring along with it at ZII. Vol. II. In the Ajita-Santi Stava Nandişeņa has employed 25 different metres of which, however, there is only one which is a strophical couplet.27 He does not employ any of the metres which are peculiar to Apabhramsa poetry and this is quite natural if we take into account the times in which Nandişeņa must have written. Nor are there any among them which may be described as Tāla Vṛttas, i.e., Vṛttas in which the chief sources of delight is the music which is produced by the rest-regulating stress. I have discussed this topic in a separate article in the R. K. Mookerji Volume, pp. 1065-81. The only strophical metre Bhāsuraka (v. 30) is made of 2 stanzas, the first being an Ardhasama Catuṣpadi Mātrā Vṛtta (with 9 and 12 Mātrās in the odd and even Pādas respectively) and the other, a Sama Catuṣpadi Mātrā Vṛtta, whose Pada contains 16 Mātrās divided into 4 Caturmatras, the last of which consists of two long letters. Owing to the purely mechanical scanning of the stanza by Jinaprabha, whose definition, therefore, merely records the Mātrā Gaņas one after another, the real nature of the metre has been very much obscured. This has been partly recognized by Schubring on p. 188, who perhaps rightly considers the metre of the second stanza to be the Varna Vṛtta called Dodhaka, whose Pada contains 3 Bhagaṇas followed by two long letters, if we grant, that the initial long letter of the first 2 Bhaganas in the 4th Pada is replaced by two short ones.28 I have, however, construed this as a Mātrā Vṛtta called Rasa as defined at Vṛttajatisamuccaya, 4.85; each of its 4 Padas contains 3 Caturmatras and 2 long letters. The composition of the metre of the first stanza is sufficiently clear; it contains in its odd Pādas 1 Caturmatra followed by 1 Pañcamātra,
27. Eight of them are Varna Vṛttas, six are Sama Catuspadi Mātrā Vrttas, four are Ardhasama Catuşpadi Mātrā Vṛttas, six are Vişama Mātrā Vrttas and one is a strophic metre, a couplet.
28. This is quite a common feature of Prakṛta poetry, when a Sanskrit Varņa Vrtta is employed in it more for its value as a song metre than for anything else.
