422 ON SANSCRIT AND 



at full length. I shall therefore select, as specimens, 

 those sorts of metre, which are most frequently em- 

 ployed, or v\hich require particular notice ; referring 

 for the rest to the subjoined tables is which the various 

 kinds are succinctly exhibited by single letters descrip- 

 tive of feet scanned in the Indian and in the Latin 

 mode. 



In the best Sanscrit poems, as those of Ca'lida'sa, 

 Bha'ravi', S'hi'harsha, Ma'gha, &c. the poet 

 usually adheres to the same, or at least to similar metre, 

 throughout the whole of the canto;* excepting towards 

 the close of it, where the metre is usually changed in 

 the lalt two or tnree stanzas, apparently with the in- 

 tention of rendering the conclusion more impressive. 

 Sometimes indeed, the metre is more irregular, being 

 changed several times within the same canto, or even 

 altering with every stanza. 



The Raghava pandaviya, by Cavira'ja,-|- is an in- 

 stance of a complete poem, every canto of which ex- 

 hibits variety of metre. This extraordinary poem is 

 composed with studied ambiguity ; so that it may, at the 

 option of the reader, be interpreted as relating the 

 history of Ra'ma and other descendants of Das'ar- 

 at'ha, or that of Yud'hisht'hira and other sons of 

 Pa'ndu. The example of this singular style of com- 

 position had been set by Suband'hu in the story of 

 Fdmvadatld and Ba'nabhatta in his unfinished 

 work entitled Cddamhari ; as is hinted by Cavira'ja. 

 Both these works, which like the Da^'acumdra of 

 Dandi, are prose compositions in poetical language. 



• Writeis on rhet rick (as the author of the Sahitya ^nrpan' a and 

 otheisj lay it dowD ns a max m, that the. metre and style should in 

 general ht un form in each canto : but they admit occasional devia- 

 tions n le^ard to the metre. 



t So the author has called himself. 



