pra'crit poetry. 439 



or an amphibrachys * before the eighth syllable, and 

 forbid an anapaest or tribrachys after the first ; as also 

 in the 2d and 4th verses of the stanza, an amphimacer. 

 A variety of this metre introduces a tribrachys before 

 the 8th syllable in the J st and 3rd verses, and a bacchius 

 in the 2d and 4tht. And another sort:}:, which admits 

 five varieties, requires the penultimate syllable to be 

 short in the 2d and 4th verses ; and introduces before 

 the 8th syllable of the 1st and third verses, a dactyl, 

 anapaest, tribrachys, amphimacer, or moiossus. 



The metre, which is most in use, is one of the spe- 

 cies now described, in which the number of syllables is 

 determinate (viz. 8) ; but the quantity variable. Ca'- 

 lida'sa appropriates to this metre the term S'hca (ab- 

 breviated hom Anushiuhh s'loca)\ 2iX\d directs, that the 

 fifth syllable of each verse be short ; the sixth, long ; 

 and the seventh alternately long and short. The mytho- 

 logical poems under the title of Furana, and the me- 

 trical treatises on law and other sciences, are almost en- 

 tirely composed in this easy verse: with a sparing inter- 

 mixture of other analogous sorts, and with the still rarer 

 introduction of other kinds of metre. The varieties of 

 the Anushiuhh S'loca, which most frequently occur, 

 make the 5th, 6th, and 7th syllables of the 1st and 3d 

 verses all long or all short; or else the 5th long with 6th 

 and 7th short. Thus varied, it is much used by the 

 best poets. Ca^lida'sa has employed it in the 2d and 

 6th cantos of his poem entitled Curnara sambhava\ and 

 in the 1st, 4th, and several others of the Raghuvatia, 

 The 2d and igth cantos of Ma'g'ha's poems are in 

 this metre, and so is the 1 1th of the Ciralarjuniya. 



The examples, here subjoined, are from Ma'g'ha's 

 poem. One passage is part of a speech of Ralara'ma 



• The metre is named Paihja when an amphibrachys is introduced 

 in the 2d and 4th yerses^ some say in the 1st and 3d. 

 t Chapnlu, 



