Vedic Hymns, Part I (SBE32): Preface to the First Edition... | Internet Sacred Text Archive

But what confirms me even more in my view that such strict uniformity must not be looked for in the ancient Conjectural emendations.hymns of the Rishis, is the fact that in many cases it would he so very easy to replace the irregular by a regular dipodia. Supposing that the original poets had restricted themselves to the dijambus, who could have put in the place of that regular dijambus an irregular dipodia? Certainly not the authors of the Prâtisâkhya, for their ears had clearly discovered the general rhythm of the ancient metres; nor their predecessors, for they had in many instances preserved the tradition of syllables lengthened in accordance with the requirements of the metre. I do not mean to insist too strongly on this argument, or to represent those who handed down the tradition of the Veda as endowed with anything like apaurusheyatva. Strange accidents have happened in the text of the Veda, but they have generally happened when the sense of the hymns had ceased to be understood; and if anything helped to preserve the Veda from greater accidents, it was due, I believe, to the very fact that the metre continued to be understood, and that oral tradition, however much it might fail in other respects, had at all events to satisfy the ears of the hearers. I should