These rules therefore show clearly that the authors of the Prâtisâkhya, though they would have shrunk from altering one single letter of the authorised Samhitâ, recognised the fact that where two vowels had been contracted into one, they might yet be pronounced as two; and where a vowel before another vowel had been changed into a semivowel, it might either be pronounced as a vowel, or as a semivowel preceded by its corresponding vowel. More than these two modifications, however, the Prâtisâkhya does not allow, or, at least, does not distinctly sanction. The commentator indeed tries to show that by the wording of the Sûtras in both places, a third modification is sanctioned, viz. the vocalisation, in the body of a word, of semivowels which do not owe their origin to an original vowel. But in both places this interpretation is purely artificial. Some such rule ought to have been given, but it was not given by the authors of the Prâtisâkhya. It ought to have been given, for it is only by observing such a rule that in I, 61, 12, gōr nă pa̅̆rv̆ă̆ vĭ rădâ̄ tĭrāskâ̆, we get a verse of eleven syllables, and thus secure for dâ in radâ the eighth place, where alone the short a could be lengthened. Yet we look in vain for a rule sanctioning the change of semivowels into vowels, except where the semivowels can rightly be called kshaipra-varna (Sûtra 974), i. e. semivowels that were originally vowels. The independent (svâbhâvika) semivowels, as e. g. the v in parva, are not included; and to suppose that in Sûtra 527 these semivowels were indicated by varna is impossible, particularly if we compare the similar wording of Sûtra 974 a.

We look in vain, too, in the Prâtisâkhya for another rule according to which long vowels, even if they do not owe their origin to the coalescence of two vowels, are liable to be protracted. However, this rule, too, though never distinctly sanctioned, is observed in the Prâtisâkhya, for unless its author observed it, he could not have obtained in the verses quoted by the Prâtisâkhya the number of syllables which he ascribes to them. According to Sûtra 937, the verse, RV. X, 134, 1, is a Mahâpaṅkti, and consists of six pâdas, of eight syllables each. In order to obtain that number, we must read:

sāmrâ̄gām kārshănî̄nâ̅̆m̅̄.

We may therefore say that, without allowing any actual change in the received text of the Samhitâ, the Prâtisâkhya distinctly allows a lengthened pronunciation of certain syllables, which in the Pada text form two syllables; and we may add that, by implication, it allows the same even in cases where the Pada text also gives but one instead of two syllables. Having this authority in our favour, I do not think that we use too much liberty if we extend this modified pronunciation, recognised in so many cases by the ancient scholars of India themselves, to other cases where it seems to us required as well, in order to satisfy the metrical rules of the Veda.