Talk:Vedic metre

Virāj
I'm not sure how to fix the listing of metres. Virāj as 4x10 is not strictly correct. The original Virāj was 3x11 (i.e. to triṣṭubh as gāyatri is to anuṣṭubh), and 4x10 can also be virāṭsthānā. The 4x10 "virāj" terminology probably evolved from the dvipadā virāj. It has to do with the fact that these metres are actually 11 "positions" long, metrically, i.e. triṣṭubh, with a full rest at (or after, depending on your point of view) the caesura: the virāṭsthānā pāda corresponding to the triṣṭubh with the caesura after the fourth syllable, and dvipadā virāj to the triṣṭubh with the caesura after the fifth. Thus the former has a 4+(1)+6 pāda structure, and the latter 5+(1)+5 - which is so regular that treating a hemistich of two such pādas as 4x5 is just as good, although it somewhat mysteriously makes the "two-foot virāj" have four feet.:-)

I suppose fixing all this will need a fuller treatment of the various metres. (Not to mention that the classical śloka is not the same as the Vedic anuṣṭubh.) rudra 07:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sanskrit metre
It would be the best to move the article to the [[Sanskrit metre]] name, and use sections to divide it into ==Vedice metre== and ==Classical Sanskrit metre==, as in its current form the article mixes those two periods, hence the name Vedic meter is all but appropriate.

Out-of-copyright sources that can be used for the further development of the article:
 * Metre in Classical Sanskrit, from Macdonell's A Sanskrit Grammar for students
 * Vedic metre, from Macdonell's A Vedic grammar for students
 * Sound recordings of various metres

Arnold's book is avaialable scanned in the Internet Archive, but I can't find Oldenberg's book scanned anywhere. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 04:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * As of December 2008, there was no "mixture of the two periods". Classical Sanskrit metres were not treated at all (for obvious reasons).  rudra (talk) 05:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Move
Echoing Ivan Štambuk above, is there any objection to moving this article to Sanskrit metre and expanding on it? Looking around at other articles, it seems that Triṣṭubh/Tristubh has its own article, Anuṣṭubh/Anustubh redirects here, and there exists a one-line Sloka meter which is apparently about Anustubh. Shreevatsa (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Chandas disambiguation page
This is the entire Chandas disambiguation page:

Chandas may refer to: * Chandas is the study of Vedic metre. See Sanskrit metre. * Chandas (font) is an OpenType typeface for the Devanagari script

This page is not quite correct, since normally a disambiguation page will provide two or more terms that provide a choice and information for the Wikipedia reader. Here, Chandas (font) is a clear choice, but the first line of disambiguation should be something like Chandas (meter) or Chandas (study) or some other way to distinguish between the font term and the other term, whatever that may be. The "See Sanskrit metre" avoids the problem, but it is not the way Wikipedia disambiguation pages normally work.

Perhaps some editor with more knowledge of Sanskrit or Vedic metre can assist with this situation. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a mess

 * The renaming to "Sanskrit metre" was very ill-advised. This article was about Vedic metres only, as even a glance at the References cited could have clued people in.  But we don't do that on Wikipedia, do we?
 * Metre in classical Sanskrit is a vast subject. And it most definitely should not be clubbed together with the subject of Vedic metre.  For the simple reason that the two have practically nothing to do with each other, some commonality in terminology notwithstanding.
 * Someone made complete nonsense of the "Principles" section by changing "Vedic" to "Sanskrit" in the first sentence. Maybe I should have cited the original sentence, or better yet, made a quote of it, to prevent the good-intentioned vandalism (no, that is not an oxymoron on Wikipedia.)  The source was Macdonell, A Vedic Grammar for Students, Appendix II.
 * (And, incidentally, the śloka is not the same as anuṣṭubh, but explaining that would take too long.)

How to fix this disaster? At a minimum, reverse the renaming and remove the bits and pieces having to do with classical Sanskrit only, as they should be in a separate article. rudra (talk) 03:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW, the Ashwini Deo paper is excellent, and would be a good basis for an article on Sanskrit metre. (Section 2.1 of that paper, where he draws a clear distinction among three different types of versification patterns, is noteworthy apropos of the disaster here.) rudra (talk) 04:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * And Vedic and Sanskrit are two different things? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * As a matter of fact, yes. If Sanskrit were Shakespearean English, then Vedic would be somewhere between Chaucer and Beowulf.  You yourself provided two references by Macdonell.  Why did he bother to write two separate grammar primers?  And why are the two PDFs, ostensibly treating the same subject ("metre") so different in their contents? rudra (talk) 06:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. It's exactly the same language in several dialects, Vedic distinguished by being a bit more archaic (some archaic inflection in nouns, and some ancient moods/tenses in verbs that fell out of use later). Both have the same dictionaries and grammars. The reason why Vedic is a subject of a separate scholarship is chiefly due to its pivotal importance for IE Studies, where literally every word, phrase or missing hiatus matters. Sanskrit versification must be treated commonly and comparatively in all the stages of its literature, it's pointless to separate it by some arbitrary temporal limits such as "Vedic" and "Classical". Only perhaps if the original article grows too large. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Since we are not here to offer free lessons, this article will have to remain a mess as long as busybodies insist on having their ignorance prevail. Same old story with Wikipedia, entropy strikes again. Sigh. rudra (talk) 14:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I suggest you drop this self-victimizing nonsense. The separation between Vedic and Classical dialect is impossible to draw, and I suspect there are some serious PoV reasons why you're trying to insist on this. There is no such thing as "Vedic language" other than "Sanskrit of the Vedas". One language, one article. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest you get a clue. You're welcome. rudra (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I suggest you get some real arguments other then silly ad-hominems. There is no such thing as "Vedic language" and there never will be regardless how many times you repeat that empty phrase, project it to your subconscious or try to convince yourself and others for the sole purpose of detachment from Hindu traditions. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 02:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Did you even freakin' read any of the references that you yourself dug up?  How about the PDF of the appendix from Macdonell's primer on Sanskrit grammar?  Lo and behold, the very first freakin' sentence reads: "The versification of classical Sanskrit differs considerably from that of the Vedic hymns [...]".  What part of differs considerably flew over your head?  Maybe you think "apples" and "oranges" belong together in a single article on "fruit"? Do you have any idea at all of this subject? rudra (talk) 14:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason why you want to separate them is not because differences in versification (which there are, I don't question that), but because you want to artificially divide Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. It is one language and one literature and these must be treated in common. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Produce a reliable source for your assertion. You have nothing to contribute here. rudra (talk) 03:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I saw this just now. I am the one who moved the page (after seeing it proposed by Ivan Štambuk above, and asking again and hearing no objection), and the distress this seems to have caused makes me feel I owe an apology for the "good-intentioned vandalism", as it were. My hope in moving this page and creating sections for Vedic and Classical was indeed that there would eventually be coverage of Classical Sanskrit metres. With the creation of the Sanskrit prosody article, a great start has been made. Apologies for the trouble caused, but I cannot deny being pleased about the outcome. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 20:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Useful Exercise
The online Sanskrit metre recognizer service at Uni-Heidelberg.de has a page with a complete listing of the meters it recognizes. 1352 of them. One thousand three hundred fifty two. Exercise for those who think Vedic meters and Sanskrit meters belong on the same single page. In that listing of 1352 Sanskrit meters, how many of the following Vedic meters can be found? (Users of Firefox may find the Ctrl-F hotkey useful) And should we await the answers with bated breath? rudra (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) gayatrI
 * 2) uSNiH
 * 3) bRhatI
 * 4) anuSTubh
 * 5) panktI
 * 6) triSTubh
 * 7) jagatI

Rudra, you are right but you are also being needlessly acrimonious towards good editors. Save your spite for the real gremlins, please. Ivan, it is correct that Vedic Sanskrit is also Sanskrit, and the comparison of the two to Early Modern vs. Old English is misleading to say the least. But in the case of meter, rudra is correct in saying that the dichotomy is complete. The reason is probably that while Sanskrit grammar remained more or less compatible, the tone and accent system changed completely. Now, it would in principle still be possible to keep one big page on "Sanskrit meter", with one section dedicated to Vedic and the other to Classical verse, but it was rather pointless to move a page which was entirely dedicated to Vedic meter to the more general title. --dab (𒁳) 09:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

sapta loka
dear Srivastava my arlicle on Saptaloka was under speedy deletion in 14:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC).As a doctor I could not answer at that time. But today when I was searching for Saptaloka, In all search engine one Polish site coming with the same thing. My article was incoherrent. But I would Like to know about the explaination of this Polish article. viz.http://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saptaloka&ei=EfkoTsKJOM3RrQeK58TxBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsaptaloka%252Bwikipedia%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D650%26prmd%3Divns. with thanks, dr rajatsubhra mukhopadhyay.

sapta loka
dear Srivastava my arlicle on Saptaloka was under speedy deletion in 14:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC).As a doctor I could not answer at that time. But today when I was searching for Saptaloka, In all search engine one Polish site coming with the same thing. My article was incoherrent. But I would Like to know about the explaination of this Polish article. viz.http://translate.google.co.in/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saptaloka&ei=EfkoTsKJOM3RrQeK58TxBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsaptaloka%252Bwikipedia%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D650%26prmd%3Divns. with thanks, dr rajatsubhra mukhopadhyay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr rajatsubhra (talk • contribs) 04:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Pāda = line or verse?
I changed the translation of pāda from "verse" to "line", on the grounds that the whole stanza is usually called the "verse". For example, in his Sanskrit Grammar, Macdonell writes: "Nearly all Sanskrit poetry is written in stanzas consisting of four metrical lines or quarter-verses (called pāda, 'foot' = quarter). These stanzas are regularly divided into hemistichs or half-verses."

On the other hand there seems to be some inconsistency, since in his Vedic Grammar, Macdonell writes: "The metrical unit here is not the foot in the sense of Greek prosody, but the foot (pāda) or quarter, in the sense of the verse or line which is a constituent of the stanza. Such verses consist of eight, eleven, twelve, or (much less commonly) five syllables." Here what he calls the "verse or line" refers to a pāda.

At any rate, to avoid ambiguity it seems best to use the word "line" rather than "verse" for pāda. Kanjuzi (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)