II, 28, 7. ēnāh kri̅nvāntăm ăsŭră ̍ bhrî̄nāntī.

Before, however, we can settle the question whether in

these and other places certain vowels should be pronounced as either long or short, we must settle the more general Metre and Grammar.question, what authority we have for requiring a long or a short syllable in certain places of the Vedic metres.

Footnotes

lxxxi:a It will be seen from my edition of the Prâtisâkhya, particularly from the extracts from Uvata, given after Sûtra 974, that the idea of making two syllables out of goh, never entered Uvata's mind. M. Regnier was right, Professor Kuhn (Beiträge, vol. iv, p. 187) was wrong. Uvata, no doubt, wishes to show that original (svâbhâvika) semivowels are liable to vyûha, or at least p. lxxxii to vyavâya; but though this is true in fact, Uvata does not succeed in his attempt to prove that the rules of the Prâtisâkhya sanction it.

lxxxiii:a See Lassen, Inst. Linguæ Pracriticæ, pp. 145, 147, 151; Cowell, Vararuki, Introduction, p. xvii. Kedârabhatta says: Pâninir bhagavân prâkritalakshanam api vakti samskritâd anyat, dîrghâksharam ka kutrakid ekâm mâtrâm upaitîti. Secundum d’Alwisium commentator docet sermonem esse de litteris Sanscriticis e et o. Cf. Pischel, De Grammaticis prakriticis, 1874.

lxxxiv:a See Professor Weber's pertinent remarks in Kuhn's Beiträge, vol. iii, p. 394. I do not think that in the verses adduced by Professor Kuhn, in which final o is considered by him as an iambus or trochee, this scanning is inevitable. Thus we may scan the Samhitâ text:

I, 88, 2. rūkmō nă kītr̆āh sv̆ădhĭtî̄vâ̄n.

I, 141, 8. răthō nă ȳâ̆tăh sīkv̆ăbhīh krĭtō.

I, 174, 3. sīmhō nă dămĕ ăp̆â̄msĭ vāstōh.

VI, 24, 3. ākshō nă kākry̆ōh s̆û̄ră brĭhān

X, 3, 1. ĭnō r̆â̄gānn ărătīh sămīddhō.

This leaves but one of Professor Kuhn's examples (Beiträge, vol. iv, p. 192) unexplained: I, 191, 1. kaṅkato na kaṅkato, where iva for na would remove the difficulty.

lxxxiv:b This subject, the shortness of e and o in the Veda, has been admirably treated by Mr. Maurice Bloomfield, 'Final as before Sonants,' Baltimore, 1882. Reprinted from the American Journal of Philology, vol. iii, No. 1.

lxxxv:a There are certain compounds in which, according to Professor Kuhn, two vowels have been contracted into one short vowel. This is certainly the opinion of Hindu grammarians, also of the compiler of the Pada text. But most of them would admit of another explanation. Thus dhánvarnasah, which is divided into dhánva-arnasah, may be dhánu-arnasah (RV. V, 45, 2). Dhánarkam, divided into dhána-arkam, may have been dhána-rikam (RV. X, 46, 5). Satárkasam (RV. VII, too, 3) may be taken as satá-rikasam instead of satá-arkasam.