Vedic meter


Vedic meter refers to the poetic metre in the Vedic literature. The study of Vedic metre, along with post-Vedic metre, is part of Chandas, one of the six Vedanga disciplines.

Overview

There are several other minor metres found in the Vedas, such as:
The shortest and most sacred of Vedic meters is the Gāyatrī meter. A verse consists of three octosyllabic sections. The following is an example of the opening of a Rigvedic hymn in Gāyatrī meter:
The Gāyatrī meter is considered as the most refined and sacred of the Vedic meters, and one that continues to be part of modern Hindu culture as part of Yoga and hymns of meditation at sunrise.
The general scheme of the Gāyatrī is a stanza of three 8-syllable lines. The length of the syllables is variable, but the rhythm tends to be iambic, especially in the cadence of each line. However, there is one rare variety, used for example in Rigveda 8.2.1–39, in which the cadence is trochaic. Another cadence sometimes found is.
The last syllable of a line may be long or short indifferently.
The Gāyatrī meter makes up about 25% of the entire Rigveda. The only meter more commonly used in Rigveda than Gāyatrī is the Tristubh meter. The structure of Gāyatrī and other Vedic meters is more flexible than post-Vedic meters.
One of the best known verses of Gāyatrī is the Gayatri Mantra, which is taken from book 3.62.10 of the Rigveda.
When the Rig-Veda is chanted, performers traditionally recite the first two padas of Gāyatrī without making a break between them, in accordance with the generally used saṃhitā text. However, according to Macdonell, "there is no reason to believe that in the original text the second verse was more sharply divided from the third than from the first." When the Gayatri Mantra is recited, on the other hand, a pause is customarily made after each pada.
When there is a pause, a short syllable at the end of a line can be considered long, by the principle of brevis in longo.
Although the Gāyatrī is very common in the Rigveda, it fell out of use early and is not found in Sanskrit poetry of the classical period. There is a similar 3 x 8 stanzaic metre in the Avestan scriptures of ancient Iran.