230 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



* 



They cover, though not entirely, a period of five generations. 

 Before producing the songs, I must, however, premise a few 

 words in explanation of the metre in which they are composed 

 and the language in which they are couched. 



Commemorative songs, partaking, as they more or less do, 

 of the nature of extemporaneous compositions, are necessarily 

 short. The metres most commonly preferred by the Caranas 

 for their commemorative songs, are two : the gita, and the 

 chappaya kavitta. Of these, the latter is w r ell known from the 

 Hindi poetry and does not call for any particular attention 

 here. But the gita, being a metrical composition peculiar to 

 Dingala, deserves some words of explanation. It consists of four 

 stanzas 1 of four lines each, but as the number of the instants in 

 each line can vary from a maximum of 23 to a minimum of 14, 

 there are different varieties of gitas, which the prosodists have 

 carefully described and designed with particular names. The 

 most common form of gita is that known under the name of 

 choto sanora. In it, each stanza consists of four lines, of which 

 the first and third numbering 16 instants, and the second and 

 fourth 15. The first line in the first stanza, however, forms an 

 exception in that it has 18 instants instead of 16. The second 

 and fourth lines in each stanza rhyme together. The other 

 varieties of gita, which most frequently occur, are : the sapan- 

 kharo, the savajhard, and the vado sanora. The sapankharo is 

 not regulated by the number of prosodic instants, but only 

 by the number of syllables. All lines in a gita must have the 

 venasagdi, i.e. the first and last word in each line must begin 

 with the same letter. 



As regards art in the gita form of songs, there is an in- 

 teresting particular to be noted. It is this : that the four stan- 

 zas which form the gita, contain all the same idea or thought 

 but expressed in a different form and with different words. It is 

 generally a similitude, which is first expressed in the first stanza 

 and then repeated in the three other stanzas in a slightly dif 

 ferent form.* It follows that the circle of meaning or of contents 

 in a gita is always a very narrow one. It is only one single 



fact or particular that a gita generally records, like the capture 



of a stronghold, the defeating of an cncnn . the glorious death 

 of a hero in battle, the gift of a village to a bard, and so on. 

 The subject is rarely described directly ; it is generally described 



) 



1 In particular cases, the number of the stanzas may be only 3, and 

 in other cases it may also exceed 4, but the standard form of gtta has 

 always 4 stanzas. 



«*iwa,ys t stanzas. 



2 The late Kaviraja Asiyo Murari Dana of Jodhpur, in his famous 

 work, the Jasavanta Jaeo Bhusana (Jodhpur, Samvat 1954, pp- M*°£ 

 calls attention to this particular feature of the gita form of Dingala 

 poetry, and comparing it with the different rifts or manners of diction oi 

 the banskrit rhetoricians-the Parlcali, the Qaudl, the Vaidarbhi, etc-- 

 uggests that .t should be called the Maravi rili.' 



