The main principle of Vedic meter is measurement by the number of syllables. The metrical unit is the pada ("foot"^[1]), generally of eight, eleven, or twelve syllables; these are termed gāyatrī, triṣṭubh and jagatī respectively,^[2] after meters of the same name. A ṛc ("verse"^[3]) typically has three or four padas, with a range of two to seven found in the corpus of Vedic poetry. Verses may mix padas of different lengths, and strophes of two or three verses (respectively, pragātha and tṛca) are common. Template:Hindu scriptures - Vedic Scriptures Hindu scripture, which is known as Shastra is predominantly written in Sanskrit. ... Image File history File links Aum. ... Veda redirects here. ... The Rigveda (Sanskrit , a compound of praise, verse[1] and knowledge) is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to the gods. ... The Yajurveda (Sanskrit , a tatpurusha compound of sacrifice + veda knowledge) is one of the four Hindu Vedas. ... The Samaveda (Sanskrit: सामवेद, sāmaveda, a tatpurusha compound of ritual chant + knowledge ), is third in the usual order of enumeration of the four Vedas, the ancient core Hindu scriptures. ... The Atharvaveda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद, , a tatpurusha compound of , a type of priest, and meaning knowledge) is a sacred text of Hinduism, and one of the four Vedas, often called the fourth Veda. According to tradition, the Atharvaveda was mainly composed by two groups of rishis known as the Bhrigus and the... The Samhita (Sanskrit: joined or collected) is the basic text of each of the Vedas, comprising collections of hymns and ritual texts. ... The Brahmana (Sanskrit ब्राह्मण) are part of the Hindu Shruti; They are composed in Vedic Sanskrit, and the period of their composition is sometimes referred to as the Brahmanic period or age (approximately between 900 BC and 500 BC). ... The Aranyakas (Sanskrit आरण्यक ) are part of the Hindu Å›ruti; these religious scriptures are written in early Classical Sanskrit, and form part of either the Brahmanas or Upanishads. ... The Upanishads (Devanagari: उपनिषद्, IAST: upaniá¹£ad) are part of the Vedas and form the Hindu scriptures which primarily discuss philosophy, meditation, and the nature of God; they form the core spiritual thought of Vedantic Hinduism. ... The Upanishads (उपनिषद्, Upanişad) are part of the Hindu Shruti scriptures which primarily discuss meditation and philosophy and are seen as religious instructions by most schools of Hinduism. ... The Aitareya Upanishad is one of the older, primary Upanishads commented upon by Shankara. ... The Upanishad is believed to be one of the older, primary (mukhya) Upanishads. ... The Isha Upanishad () or Ishopanishad (), also known as the Ishavasya Upanishad (), is a Sanskrit poem (or sequence of mantras) from the Upanishads and is considered Åšruti by followers of a number of diverse traditions within Hinduism. ... The Taittiriya Upanishad is one of the Upanishads associated to the taittiriya samhita of the Black Yajurveda. ... The Chandogya Upanishad is one of the main ten Upanishads of Hinduism. ... The Kena Upanishad (), is one of the older, primary Upanishads commented upon by Shankara. ... Mundaka Upanishad is an Upanishad of the Atharva Veda. ... MāndÅ«kya Upanishad is one of the shortest Upanishads, that form of the revealed, so called metaphysical, parts of the Vedic texts, the Vedas. ... i hate prashna ... The Shvetashvatara Upanishad is one of the 33 Upanishads of Krishna Yajurveda or Black Yajurveda . ... The Vedanga (IAST , member of the Veda) are six auxiliary disciplines for the understanding and tradition of the Vedas. ... For the Yiddish slang word, see Shiksa. ... The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of , is one of the six Vedanga disciplines. ... Nirukta is Vedic glossary of difficult words. ... Jyotisha (, in Hindi and English usage Jyotish; sometimes called Hindu astrology, Indian astrology, and/or Vedic astrology) is the Hindu system of astrology, one of the six disciplines of Vedanga, and regarded as one of the oldest schools of ancient astrology to have had an independent origin, affecting all other... Kalpa is one of the six disciplines of Vedanga, treating ritual. ... Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent. ... For the film by Peter Brook, see The Mahabharata (1989 film). ... For the television series by Ramanand Sagar, see Ramayan (TV series). ... Bibliography of Hindu scriptures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Smriti (Sanskrit स्मॄति, that which is remembered) refers to a specific canon of Hindu religious scripture. ... The Å›ruti (Sanskrit thing heard, sound) is the smallest interval of the tuning system of Indian classical music. ... Bhagavad Gīta भगवद्गीता, composed ca the fifth - second centuries BC, is part of the epic poem Mahabharata, located in the Bhisma-Parva chapters 23–40. ... Purana (Sanskrit: , meaning tales of ancient times) is the name of an ancient Indian genre (or a group of related genres) of Hindu or Jain literature (as distinct from oral tradition). ... For the Buddhist texts called the Agamas, see Nikaya. ... The Sanskrit word darshana means view or viewpoint. ... Pañcaratra is an pre-Puranic form of Hinduism, which equated Narayana with Vishnu. ... The Tantra (Looms or Weavings), refer to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. ... SÅ«tra (sex) (Sanskrit) or Sutta (Pāli) literally means a rope or thread that holds things together, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. ... Stotras are Hindu prayers that praise aspects of God, such as Devi, Siva, or Vishnu. ... The Dharmashastra is a volume of Hindu legal texts, covering moral, ethical and social laws. ... The Nalayira Divya Prabandha is a divine [1] collection of 4,000 verses (Naalayira in Tamil means four thousand) composed sometime around the 8th and 12th century AD, by the 12 Alvars (also aazhvaars), the Tamil mystic poets, and was compiled in its present form by Nathamuni during the 9th... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Thevaram (Verses). ... Akilathirattu Ammanai அகிலத்திரட்டு அம்மானை (Tamil: akilam (world) + thirattu (collection) + ammanai (ballad)), also called Thiru Edu (venerable book), is the main religious book of the Southern Indian Ayyavazhi faith, officially an offshoot of Hinduism. ... ÅšrÄ« Rāmcaritmānas (Hindi: रामचरितमानस) is an epic poem composed by the great 16th-century Indian poet, Goswami Tulsidas (c. ... The Shikshapatri is a text of two hundred and twelve verses, and was written by Shree Swaminarayan, a reforming Hindu from the Vaishnava tradition, who lived in Gujarat from 1781-1830 and who was recognised by his followers as a deity during his lifetime. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bibliography of Hindu scriptures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

Syllables in a pada are also classified as metrically short (laghu "light") or long (guru "heavy"): a syllable is metrically short only if it contains a short vowel and is not followed by consecutive consonants in the same pada. All other syllables are long, by quality (having a long vowel or diphthong) or by position (being followed by a consonant cluster.) Comparison with the Avestan literature shows that originally there were no constraints on permissible patterns of long and short syllables, the principle being purely quantitative. Vedic prosody innovated a number of distinctive rhythms:

• The last four syllables of a pada, termed the cadence by Indologists, are usually iambic or trochaic. This is mainly a strict alternation in the penultimate and antepenultimate syllables, as the final syllable can be of either weight.
• A caesura is found after the fourth or fifth syllable in triṣṭubh and jagatī padas, dividing the pada into an opening and break before the cadence.
• The break very often starts with two short syllables.
• The opening shows an iambic or trochaic tendency in keeping with the cadence, though the first syllable can be of either weight, the alternation being in the second and third.

There is, however, considerable freedom in relation to the strict metrical canons of Classical Sanskrit prosody, which Arnold(1905) holds to the credit of the Vedic bards:

Classification

Arnold(1905) uses the term dimeter for metrical schemes based on the 8-syllable (gāyatrī) pada, there being a two-fold division of a pada into opening and cadence; and the term trimeter for schemes based on 11-syllable (triṣṭubh) or 12-syllable (jagatī) padas, the division being into opening, break and cadence.

The principal difference between the two forms of trimeter is in the rhythm of the cadence: generally trochaic for triṣṭubh padas and iambic for jagatī padas. Except for one significant collection, gāyatrī padas are also generally iambic in the cadence. The compatibility of iambic cadence underlies the significant variety of mixed meters combining gāyatrī and jagatī padas.

Dimeter Forms

Metres with two to six gāyatrī padas are named dvipadā gāyatrī, gāyatrī, anuṣṭubh, pańkti and mahāpańkti. Of these, only the gāyatrī and anuṣṭubh are frequently found.

Trimeter Forms

Mixed Forms

Traditional Literature

While Chandas (छंदः), the study of Vedic meter, is one of the six Vedanga ("limb of the vedas"), no treatises dealing exclusively with Vedic meter have survived. The oldest work preserved is the Chandas-shastra, at the transition from Vedic to Classical (Epic) Sanskrit poetry. Later sources are the Agni Purana, based on the Chandas shastra, chapter 15 of the Bharatiya Natyashastra, and chapter 104 of the Brihat-samhita. These works all date to roughly the Early Middle Ages. Vrittaratnakara of Kedarabhatta, dating to ca. the 14th century, is widely known, but does not discuss Vedic meter. The Suvrittatilaka of Kshemendra was also influential, and valuable for its quotations of earlier authors. The Vedanga (IAST , member of the Veda) are six auxiliary disciplines for the understanding and tradition of the Vedas. ... Agni Purana, one of the major eighteen Puranas, a Hindu religious text believed to be written and compiled in the 10th century, contains descriptions and details of various incarnations (avatars) of Vishnu. ... Justinians wife Theodora and her retinue, in a 6th century mosaic from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. ...

A well-known quantitative scheme in the traditional literature classifies the common meters according to the syllable count of a verse, as multiples of 4: thus, dvipadā virāj (20), gāyatrī (24), uṣṇih (28), anuṣṭubh (32), bṛhatī (36), pańkti (40), triṣṭubh (44), and jagatī (48). This scheme omits the original virāj entirely (with 33 syllables) and fails to account for structural variations within the same total syllable count, such as the 28 syllables of the kākubh (8+12+8) versus the uṣṇih (8+8+12), or the 40 of the later virāj (4x10) versus the pańkti (5x8). More comprehensive schemes in the traditional literature have been mainly terminological, each distinct type of verse carrying its own name. The classification is exhaustive rather than analytic: every variant actually found in the received text has been named without regard to any need for metrical restoration.

See also

• Vedic accent

The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is traditionally divided by Sanskrit grammarians into three qualities, udātta raised (acute accent), anudātta not raised (grave accent) and svarita sounded (circumflex). ...

Notes

1. ^ corresponding to a "line" rather than "foot" of Western prosody.
2. ^ e.g. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 3.25-28
3. ^ In some Indological literature, the terminology takes pada as "verse", and ṛc as "stanza".

References

• Klaus Mylius, Geschichte der altindischen Literatur, Wiesbaden 1983.
• B. van Nooten und G. Holland, Rig Veda, a metrically restored text, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 1994.
• E.V. Arnold, Vedic metre in its historical development, Cambridge, UP, 1905.
• H. Oldenberg, Prolegomena on Metre and Textual History of the Ṛgveda, Berlin 1888. Tr. V.G. Paranjpe and M.A. Mehendale, Motilal Banarsidass 2005 ISBN 81-208-0986-6

External links

• Appendix II of Griffith's translation, a listing of the names of various Vedic meters, with notes.