[Y-Indology] Popular versus Classical meters

[Guest guest]

Quoting harryspier2000 <harryspier:

 

> Also Coulson wrote in "Teach Yourself Sanskrit" about AryA meter.

> "This meter was adopted into Sanskrit from more popular sources."

>

> In general is it true that the more "popular" and vernacular meters

> are mAtrA based and the "classical" ones are syllabic.

 

It seems that maatraa can also be synonymous with paadam? Mallinatha writes

after the first stanza of the sixteenth canto of the Sisupalavadha, asminsarge

vaitaaliiyaakhyaM maatraavRttam, but all of the hemistichs in this canto have

the same number of syllables which are long and short in the same places, so

the metre seems to be quantitative rather than moric, yet it is called a

maatraavRttam.

 

Phillip

[Guest guest]

Originally, Vaitaaliiya has been a maatraachandas of the following structure:

The opening of the

uneven quarters (ac) consists of 6 (3 x 2) maatraas, the opening of the even

quarters (bd) consists

of 8 (4 x 2) maatraas, followed in each quarter by the cadence _ v _ v _ ( v =

short, _ = long).

Moreover, 6 short syllables in the beginning of the uneven quarters (ac) is not

allowed.

Accordingly, the scheme of a Vaitaaliiya is as follows (° ° = v v resp. _

_):

 

ac: ° ° ° ° ° ° / _ v _ v _

 

bd: ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° / _ v _ v _

 

The Vaitaaliiya in the "classical period" (Kaalidaasa, Bhaaravi, Maagha, etc.)

has already a fixed

form, thereby loosing its original character of a maatraachandas:

 

ac: v v _ v v / _ v _ v _

bd: v v _ _ v v / _ v _ v _

 

Consequently, later Indian authors of metrical treatises subsume that "frozen

Vaitaaliiya form"

under the ardhasamav.rtta class and use special names for it (e.g. Hemacandra:

Prabodhitaa;

Jayakiirti: Vibodhitaa; a more popular name is Viyoginii, used in the late work

Mandaaramarandacampuu).

 

On the origin of that metre, see Hermann Jacobi: "Über die Entwicklung der

indischen Metrik in

nachvedischer Zeit", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 38

(1884), pp. 590-595

(= Kleine Schriften I, Wiesbaden 1970, pp. 146-150); Junko Goto-Sakamoto: Les

stances en

maatraachandas dans le Jaataka Paali. [unpublished] Thèse pour le doctorat de

3ème cycle présentée

à l'Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). 1982.

 

With regards,

Roland Steiner

 

On 25 May 2004 at 9:17, Phillip Ernest wrote:

 

[...]

> It seems that maatraa can also be synonymous with paadam? Mallinatha writes

> after the first stanza of the sixteenth canto of the Sisupalavadha, asminsarge

> vaitaaliiyaakhyaM maatraavRttam, but all of the hemistichs in this canto have

> the same number of syllables which are long and short in the same places, so

> the metre seems to be quantitative rather than moric, yet it is called a

> maatraavRttam.

>

> Phillip