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

This subject is so important, and affects so large a number of passages in the Veda, that it requires the The four principal Pâdas.most careful examination. The Vedic metres, though at first sight very perplexing, are very simple, if reduced to their primary elements. The authors of the Prâtisâkhyas have elaborated a most complicated system. Counting the syllables in the most mechanical manner, they have assigned nearly a hundred names to every variety which they discovered in the hymns of the Rig-veda a. But they also observed that the constituent elements of all these metres were really but four, (Sûtras 988, 989):

1. The Gâyatra pâda, of eight syllables, ending in  ̆  ̄.

2. The Vairâga pâda, of ten syllables, ending in  ̄  ̄.

3. The Traishtubha pâda, of eleven syllables, ending in  ̄  ̄.

4. The Gâgata pâda, of twelve syllables, ending in  ̆  ̄.

Then follows an important rule, Sûtra 990: 'The penultimate syllable,' he says, in a Gâyatra and Gâgata pâda is light (laghu), in a Vairâga and Traishtubha pâda heavy (guru).' This is called their vritta.

This word vritta, which is generally translated by metre, had evidently originally a more special meaning. It meant the final rhythm, or if we take it literally, the Vritta = versus. turn of a line, for it is derived from vrit, to turn. Hence vritta is the same word as the Latin versus, verse; but I do not wish to decide whether the connection between the two words is historical, or simply etymological. In Latin, versus is always supposed to have meant originally a furrow, then a line, then a verse. In Sanskrit the metaphor that led to the formation of vritta, in the sense of final rhythm, has nothing to do with ploughing. If, as I have tried to prove (Chips from a German Workshop,

vol. i, p. 84), the names assigned to metres and metrical language were derived from words originally referring to choregic movements, vritta must have meant the turn, i. e. the last step of any given movement; and this turn, as determining the general character of the whole movement, would naturally be regulated by more severe rules, while greater freedom would be allowed for the rest.