VI 



On Sanscrit and Pra'crit Poetry. 



BY HENRY THOMAS COLEBROOKE, ESQ. 



X HE design of the present essay is not an enumeration 

 of the poetical compositions current among the Hindus, 

 nor an examination of their poetry by maxims of cri- 

 ticism recognized in Europe \ or by rules of composi- 

 tion taught in their own treatises of rhetorick ; but to 

 exhibit the laws of versification, together with brief 

 notices of the most celebrated poems in which* these 

 have been exemplified. 



An inquiry into the prosody of the ancient and 

 learned language of India will nor be deemed an unne- 

 cessary introduction to the extracts from Indian poems, 

 which may be occasionally inserted in the supplementary 

 volumes of Asiatick Researches : and our transactions 

 record more than one instance of the aid which was de- 

 rived from a knowledge of Sanscrit prosody, in decy 

 phering passages rendered obscure by the obsoleteness 

 of the character, or by the inaccuracy of the tran- 

 scripts *. It will be found similarly useful by every 

 person who studies that language ; since manuscripts 

 are in generr^ grossly incorrect ; and a familiarity with 

 the metre will frequently assist the reader in restoring 

 the text where it has been corrupted. Even to those, 

 who are unacquainted with the language, a concise ex- 

 planation of the Indian system of prosody may be cu- 

 rious, since the artifice of its construction is peculiar, 



Vol. I. p. 279- Vo^II. P'3S9. 

 Cc 3 



