long before we find that it would be hopeless to try to crush the Gâyatrî verses of the Vedic Rishis on this Gâyatra Pâdas.Procrustean bed. Even Professor Kuhn very soon perceived that this was impossible. He had to admit that in the Gâyatrî the two first pâdas, at all events, were free from this rule, and though he tried to retain it for the third or final pâda, he was obliged after a time to give it up even there. Again, it is perfectly true, that in the third pâda of the Gâyatrî, and in the second and fourth pâdas of the Anushtubh strophe, greater care is taken by the poets to secure a short syllable for the penultimate, but here, too, exceptions cannot be entirely removed. We have only to take such a single hymn as I, 27, and we shall see that it would be impossible to reduce it to the uniform standard of Gâyatrî pâdas, all ending in a dijambus.

Footnotes

xcv:a See Appendix to my edition of the Prâtisâkhya, p. ccclvi.

xcviii:a Professor Kuhn (vol. iii, p. 450) is inclined to admit the same metre as varying in certain hymns with ordinary Traishtubha pâdas, but the evidence he brings forward is hardly sufficient. Even if we object to the endings  ̆  ̄  ̆  ̄ and  ̄  ̄  ̆  ̄, V, 33, 4, may be a Gâgata, with vyûha of dâsa, the remark quoted from the Prâtisâkhya being of no consequence on such points; and the same remedy would apply to V, 41, 5, with vyûha of eshe. In VI, 47, 31, vyûha of asvaparnaih; in I, 33, 9, vyûha of indra and rodasî; in II, 24, 5, vyûha of mâdbhih would produce the same effect; while in I, 121, 8, we must either admit the Traishtubha vritta  ̄  ̆  ̄ or scan dhūksh̆ān. In III, 58, 6, I should admit vyûha for năr̆â̄; in IV, 26, 6, for māndr̆ām; in I, 100, 8, for gy̆ōtīh, always supposing that we consider the ending  ̄  ̄  ̆  ̄ incompatible with a Trishtubh verse.

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