It is perfectly true that if we keep to these four pâdas, (to which one more pâda, viz. the half Vairâga, consisting of five syllables, might be added) we can reduce nearly all the hymns of the Rig-veda to their simple elements which the ancient poets combined together, in general in a very simple way, but occasionally with greater freedom. The most important strophes, formed out of these pâdas, are,

1. Three Gâyatra pâdas = the Gâyatrî, (24 syllables.)

2. Four Gâyatra pâdas = the Anushtubh, (32 syllables.)

3. Four Vairâga pâdas = the Virâg, (40 syllables.)

4. Four Traishtubha pâdas = the Trishtubh, (44 syllables.)

5. Four Gâgata pâdas = the Gagatî, (48 syllables.)

Between the Gâyatrî and Anushtubh strophes, another strophe may be formed, by mixture of Gâyatra and Gâgata pâdas, consisting of 28 syllables, and commonly called Ushnih; likewise between the Anushtubh and the Virâg, a strophe may be formed, consisting of 36 syllables, and commonly called Brihatî.

In a collection of hymns, however, like that of the Rig-veda, where poems of different ages, different places, and

different families have been put together, we must be prepared for exceptions to many rules. Thus, although the final turn of the hendecasyllabic Traishtubha is, as a rule, the bacchius,  ̆  ̄  ̄, yet if we take, for instance, the 77th hymn of the tenth Mandala, we clearly perceive another hendecasyllabic pâda of a totally different structure, and worked up into one of the most beautiful strophes by an ancient poet. Each line is divided into two halves, the first consisting of seven syllables, being an exact counterpart of the first member of a Saturnian verse (fato Romae Metelli); the second a dijambus, answering boldly to the broken rhythm of the first member a. We have, in fact, a Trishtubh where the turn or the three-step,  ̆  ̄  ̄, instead of being at the end, stands in the middle of the line.

X, 77, 1-5, in the Pada text:

1. ābhrā-prŭshāh nă vâ̄kâ̄ ̍ prŭshă̅ văsū,
   hăvīshmāntāh nă yāgñâ̄h ̍ vĭ-gâ̄nŭshāh | &c.

Another strophe, the nature of which has been totally misapprehended by native metricians, occurs in IV, 10. It is there called Padapaṅkti and Mahâpadapaṅkti; nay, attempts have been made to treat it even as an Ushnih, or as a kind of Gâyatrî. The real character of that strophe is so palpable that it is difficult to understand how it could have been mistaken. It consists of two lines, the first embracing three or four feet of five syllables each, having the ictus on the first and the fourth syllables, and resembling the last line of a Sapphic verse. The second line is simply