ON SANSCRIT ALLITERATION. 



137 



this great poet, to illustrate this subject ; it will be proper in the first place 

 to consider the different kinds of alliteration which his work contains. 



The Nalodaya is for the most part written in verse measured by time, 

 but is interspersed with verses measured by the number of syllables. The 

 verses measured by time belong to the second class, first order, first genus, 

 and ninth species of Sanscrit poetry. The genus is called '^T'^^T and 

 the species '^T'^T^f^. Each line contains thirty-two instants, with the 

 poetic pause at the end of the third foot or twelfth instant. An instant is 

 one short syllable ; a long syllable is two instants. In scanning this 

 metre, only trisyllabic feet must be used ; with the exception of one dissyl- 

 labic, the spondee ; and one quadrisyllable, the proceleusmatic. The sixth 

 foot of each line, or of the second and fourth pddas, must be an amphibrach 

 or proceleusmatic. The alliteration takes place in the first pAcla immedi- 

 ately after the first foot ; and in the second pdda at the close ; in the third 

 pdda, in like manner, after the first foot, and in the fourth at the close ; or 

 in other words, the alliteration is found in the beginning of each line after 

 the first foot and at the end. The first verse will serve as a general 

 specimen for the whole, as — 



^ v./ W v.* I I ^ — I 1 \ — \j\ 1 >-/ v-* 



— I — I 1^ — I v-/ 



O my heart ! never depart from Yddava, the father of Love, who is the fire that burns the 

 intolerable wood of sin, and who preserves the three ivorlds from all enemies. 



Though the preceding is the regular structure of the verses measured by 

 time in the Nalodaya, yet there are one or two exceptions in the position of 

 the letters repeated. In the first book the following exception occurs : — 



She saw there some men bright as fire, glorious and energetic ; and in appearance so like 

 Nala, that there was no difference between them. 



2 L 



