^"iO ON SANSCRIT AND 



with the studied arrangement and formal precision of 

 the schools. I ^hall instance the Rasamayijari of Bh a'- 

 NUC)ATTA Mis'fiA In Sanscr'u, and the works of Ma- 

 TiRAMA and SuNDARA in Hindi. Hei£ various des- 

 criptions of lovers and mistresses distinguished by tem- 

 per, age and circumstances, are systematically classed 

 and logically defined, with the seriousness and elabo- 

 rate precision of scholastick writers. As ridicule was 

 not intended, these poems are not humorous but tri- 

 fling: and I should not have dwelt on the subject, if 

 tht'ir number and the recurrence of them in different 

 languages of Indta, were nor evidence that the national 

 raste is consulted in such compositions. 



Iir. Varna vrUta% metre regulated by the number 

 of syllables. 



The next sort of metre is that, which i=; measured by 

 the number of syllables : it is denominated AcsharacJi - 

 handas or Varna vritla in contradistinction to the pre- 

 ceding kinds which are rei^ulated by quantity; and it 

 maybe subdiv ded into three sorts, according as the 

 verses, composing the stanza, are all similar, or the al- 

 ternate alike, or all dissimilar. 



This also is a stanza of four verses (fadas), each 

 containing an equal nuinber of s)'llables, the length of 

 which is regulated by special rules. The number of 

 syllables varies from tiventy-four, to a hundred and four, 

 in each strophe : this is, from six to twenty-six in each 

 verse. Tliere are indeed names in Pracrit prosody for 

 verses from one to five syllables, and instances of San- 

 scrit verse containing a higher number than above 

 stared, viz. from twenty-seven, to one less than a thou- 

 sand. But th^se constitute distinct class&s^ of metre. 

 Between the limits first mentioned, twenty-one kinds 

 receive different apj^ellations appropriated to the num- 

 of syllables contained in the stanza. 



