130 G. A. Grierson— Manbodli s Haribans. [No. 2, 
The metre of the poem is uniform throughout. It is a variety of the 
Ghaupai Glihancl , containing fifteen instants in each half line, with a break 
after the sixth. The last three instants in each half rhyme with each other, 
and usually take the form of one long syllable, and one short, thus — 
Sometimes, however they take the form of three short syllables, thus 
^ 'j'j; but in every case the last syllable must be short. Usually but not 
always, the eleventh and twelfth instants also consist of two short syllables. 
I have used the signs TF, and for the short vowels e, di , o 
du, peculiar to Eastern Gaudian languages. Their non-initial forms are 
'*■' e ^ di, o, and \ cm respectively. These signs have already been used by 
me in my grammars of the Bihar dialects now being published by the 
Government of Bengal, and are not new, having (with the exception of J£) 
been used by Dr. Hoernle for similar purposes in his Gaudian Grammar. 
The use of the sibilants was very uncertain in the copies of the 
poem which were available ; ‘Sj; and ^r, and again and being freely 
interchangeable without any system. I have therefore in every case taken 
customary pronunciation as the surest guide :—always altering uncom¬ 
pounded to % and uncompounded ^ to In a few foreign words 
like fjJK ‘ outcry,’ n has been retained; and, out of deference to strong 
prejudice, I have allowed the customary spelling of the words ^t?r, and 
1S$!T to remain, though the present Maithil pronunciation, is certainly 
and respectively. 
The vowel m is never pronounced in Maithili, the sound being used 
instead ; in fact, ^ is, as often as not, not only pronounced but written Dc. 
Under these circumstances, I have adopted the less pedantic, and more 
rational spelling. 
As regards the quantity of vowels for the purposes of scansion, with 
the exception of ^fr, they all tell their own tale when before a single con¬ 
sonant. may be either long or short for metric purposes, but in the 
termination of the preterite it is always short.* There are many 
examples of short throughout the poem: an example of the 1st class is 
(1, 10), in which the ^UT«r is short: an example of the second class 
(n, 2). 
Short vowels can become long by position, but this is not an invariable 
rule. They are always short before the compounds ^ ( e. g., 
hi, 8) and ^ (e. g., ii, 32). Before the nexus of a nasal and 
another class-consonant, they are common,—Example, long in vn, 42, 
but short in vn, 53. Examples of vowels short before this kind of nexus 
are very common; and, in order to help the reader, when the preceding 
syllable is short I have denoted it by anuswdra , and when it is long by the 
class nasal. -Thus in the first syllable will be read long’, but in it 
will be lead shoit. bo, will be read with the first syllable long, but 
* So also in Vidyapati. 
