________________
xlviii सवृत्तिका कविदर्षणः
[INTRODUCTION Māgadhikā when it is employed in Prakrit poetry. See notes on the passage in the Kavidarpana. The second Ardhasama metre is the Kusumalatā used for v. 15; bu! it is only another name of the well known Aupacchandasaka, which is defined at the Kavidarpana 5.2. Jinaprabha, however, does not quote from the Kavidarpana, and composes his own definition for his own reasons which I have attempted to guess in para 2 of this Introduction, Hemacandra's Kusumalatāgļha at Chandonuśāsana 6.19.57, is nearly identical with our Kusumalatā; but the former contains 1 Matrā less in each Pāda, i.e., 15 in stead of 16 in the odd Pādas and 17 in stead of 18 in the even ones. The third Ardhasama metre employed by Nandişeņa is the Bhujangaparirangita in v. 16. Its odd and even Pādas respectively contain 12 and 14 Mātrās. The former are made up by a Pañcamātra, a Caturmātra, a short and a long letter in succession, while in the latter one Mātrā is added in the beginning after the 1st Gana and another before the last long letter. All the four Pādas have one common rhyme. The fourth and the last Ardhasama is the Citrāksarā used for v. 27. This metre is unlike the other Ardhasamas; here the 1st and the 4th Pädas are equal and similar and so are the 2nd and the 3rd. All the four have a common rhyme in our stanza as also in the corresponding stanza of śānticandra. Pādas 1 and 4 each contain 5 Caturmātras followed by 2 long letters, while Pādas 2 and 3 have each 6 Caturmātras followed by a single long letter. This is according to Jinaprabha's mechanical scanning; but really speaking, we have 2 short letters added at the commencement of the 2nd and the 4th Pādas, which are otherwise exactly identical with the other two. In point of rhythm this metre reminds us of the Ratnamālā of v. 23, with the only difference that the long letter at the commencement of the Bhagana is very often substituted by 2 short ones in our stanza, while in the Ratnamālā, this has happened only once, i.e., in the 3rd Gana of the 3rd Pāda. This kind of the Ardhasama is rather rare.
33. We shall now discuss the six Vişama Vrttas of the Mātrā Vștta class, which are employed by Nandişeņa. The first among them is the well known Gāthā; this has been used in vv. 1 and 2, as also for vv. 35, 36 and 37. It would appear that Nandişeņa considered Gāthā as a Catuspadi like the author of the Kavidarpana; this is clear from the one common rhyme which he has employed for all the four Pādas in vv. 2, 35, 36 and 37. Rhyme indeed is not a characteristic of the Gathā, which is merely a Prakritized form of the Sanskrit Āryā. But as Nandişena has employed rhyme prominently in his Prakrit poem, he has used it also for the Gāthā. Gātha must be considered as a Vişama Vrtta, whether we consider it as a Dvipadi