1881.] 
BIDYAPATI. 
37 
may be able to give a fuller account of the result. It must be sufficient 
to observe here that each foot throughout is divisible into four short 
instants, and that one long instant is equivalent to two short. Each foot 
may therefore consist of either ^ ^ w, — vjq 
or-. Sometimes a long syllable is divided between two feet, but in 
that case the three following instants of the second foot must be three 
short syllables, thus we find '•s -f — v-/ -p , 
w — -p w w . 
The following schemes of metre may be noticed. Each column gives 
all kinds of feet allowable in this position. 1 * 
(i-) 
1 
1st foot. 
2nd foot. 
3rd foot. 
4th foot. 
\U \J \J v_y 
\J \J \j 
\j 
—* V_y 
or — 
or — kj 
or — w \j 
Rhyme 
or — — 
or — — 
or v -■' , — 
or ^ — V-/ 
or ^ w — 
or v- 7 vj — 
or •— w -p 
or — -p \j \j 
or -p \w/ w \j 
The principal rule in this metre is that the third foot must end with 
two short instants. 
In one instance, (Vide LX), the fourth foot is simply one long 
syllable instead of a long and a short. The above metre is very common. 
(2.) Varieties of the above, not so common, have the fourth foot 
-, —, or w ^ 
* I am quite aware that the following schemes of metre will not satisfy those who 
bind themselves down to the laws of the Chhandodipaka, and the Pingaladarsa, hut 
I cannot help it, and must disarm hostile criticism by assuring my critics that I do not 
hastily differ from those celebrated works. I have with my own hand recorded the 
quantity of every syllable in Bidyapati’s poems ; and it is not my fault if they do not 
come up to the standard of metres in other dialects. I have adopted the system of 
counting four syllables to a foot because I found it simplest to do so, and because the 
lines naturally divide themselves to the reader in this way. As an example of how 
Bidyapati is his own rule in matters of metre, I may cite the third variety of metre 
noted above. In this each line contains 28 instants, with a caesura after the 16th. 
The class being Jati , and the order being Mdtra Chhand , this naturally suggests the 
well-known Bhajan metre called Thwnarigit which coincides with the 
above description. But Thuwiarigit divides the instants of its feet thus 6 + 4 + 4 + 
2, 4 + 4 + 4= 28: while Bidyapati sometimes makes his 6 th and 7th instants one 
long syllable which is incompatible with the above. 
