414 OM SANSCRIT AND 



named Macara : (which has in the Hindu Zodiack the 

 place of Capricorn;. It is here translated dolphin, 

 without however supposing eitJier the deliverer of 

 AmoN', or any species of dolphin (as the term is ap- 

 propriated in systems of natural history), to be meant. 



The Gal' ha or Gaha has been already noticed as a 

 name of the A'rya measure in Piacrit prosody. In- 

 cluding under this as a general designation the seven 

 species of it, with all their numerous varieties, it is no 

 uncommon metre in Pracr'it poetry. A collection of 

 amatory verses ascribed to the famous monarch S'a'li- 

 va'hana, comprising seven hundred stanzas* and 

 purporting to be a selection from many thousands by 

 the same author^ is exclusively in metre of this kind. 

 The introductory verse intimates, that 



*• Seven hundred couplets fgahas) are here selected out of 

 ten millions of eleguat couplets composed by the poet Ha'l a." 



Ha'la is a known title oFSa'li va'hana, and is so 

 explained both here and in a subsequent passage by the 

 scholiast Ganga'd'hara bhat'ta. It is not, how- 

 ever, probable, that he really composed those verses ; 

 and it would be perhaps too much to conjecture, that 

 the true author of them was patronised by that mo- 

 narch whose existence as an Indian sovereign has been 

 brouirht in doubt. 



o 



The metre c^CAfid Maharashtra m Pracr'it, Mara- 

 hat't'a) is a tetrastich, of which each verse contains 2p 

 viatras, scanned by one foot of (3 and five of 4 ; with 

 a terminating trochee. It has pauses at the J 8th and 

 29th malras. This measure is evidently denominated 

 from the country, which gives name to the Marahatta 

 nation ; as another species, befdrementioned, takes its 



I'rom their number, entitled Sat sat. 



