Chaupai (poetry)

A chaupai (चौपाई) is a quatrain verse of Indian poetry, especially medieval Hindi poetry, that uses a metre of four syllables.

Famous chaupais include those of poet-saint Tulsidas (used in his classical text Ramcharitamanas and poem Hanuman Chalisa).

Chaupai is identified by a syllable count 16/16, counted with a value of 1 in case of Hrasva (short sounding letter) and 2 in case of Dirgha (long sounding letter).

Examples
Some of the famous 40 chaupais (known as "chalisa");


 * Hanuman Chalisa
 * Ganesh Chalisa
 * Shiv Chalisa