But although with regard to the Gâyatra, and I may add, the Ânushtubha pâdas, the evidence as to the variety Traishtubha and Gâgata Pâdas.of their vrittas is such that it can hardly be resisted, a much more determined stand has been made in defence of the vritta of the Traishtubha and Gâgata pâdas. Here Professor Kuhn and those who follow him maintain that the rule is absolute, that the former must end in  ̆  ̄  ̆, the latter in  ̆  ̄  ̆  ̄, and that the eighth syllable, immediately preceding these syllables, ought, if possible, to be long. Nor can I deny that Professor Kuhn has brought forward powerful arguments in support of his theory, and that his emendations of the Vedic text recommend themselves by their great ingenuity and simplicity. If his theory could be carried out, I should readily admit that we should gain something. We should have throughout the Veda a perfectly uniform metre, and wherever we found any violation of it, we should be justified in resorting to conjectural criticism.

The only question is at what price this strict uniformity can be obtained. If, for instance, in order to have the regular vrittas at the end of Traishtubha and Gâgata lines, we were obliged to repeal all rules of prosody, to allow almost every short vowel to be used as long, and every long vowel to be used as short, whether long by nature or by position, we should have gained very little, we

should have robbed Peter to pay Paul, we should have removed no difficulty, but only ignored the causes which created it. Now, if we examine the process by which Professor Kuhn establishes the regularity of the vrittas or final syllables of Traishtubha and Gâgata pâdas, we find, in addition to the rules laid down before, and in which he is supported, as we saw, to a great extent by the Prâtisâkhya and Pânini, viz. the anceps nature of e and o, and of a long final vowel before a vowel, the following exceptions or metrical licences, without which that metrical uniformity at which he aims, could not be obtained:

Prosodial Licences.1. The vowel o in the body of a word is to be treated as optionally short:

II, 39, 3. prătĭ vāstō̆r ūsrâ̄ (see Trisht. § 5).

Here the o of vastoh is supposed to be short, although it is the Guna of u, and therefore very different from the final e of sarve or âste, or the final o of sarvo for sarvas or mano for manas a. It should be remarked that in Greek, too, the final diphthongs corresponding to the e of sarve and âste are treated as short, as far as the accent is concerned. Hence ἄποικοι, τύπτεται, and even γνῶμαι, nom. plur. In Latin, too, the old terminations of the nom. sing. o and u, instead of the later us, are short. (Neue, Formenlehre, § 23 seq.)

VI, 51, 15. gō̆pâ̄ ămâ̄.

Here the o of gopâ is treated as short, in order to get  ̆  ̄  ̆  ̄ instead of  ̄  ̄  ̆  ̄, which is perfectly legitimate at the end of an Ushnih.