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The verses of the Vedas have a variety of different meters. They are grouped by the number of padas in a verse, and by the number of syllables in a pada. ''Chandas'' ((unicode:छन्दः)), the study of Vedic meter, is one of the six Vedanga disciplines, or "organs of the vedas". There are several Chandas. The seven main ones are: *Gayatri: 3 padas of 8 syllables containing 24 syllables in each stanza. * : 4 padas of 7 syllables containing 28 syllables in each stanza. *Anustubh: 4 padas of 8 syllables containing 32 syllables in each stanza. The typical shloka of classical Sanskrit poetry is in this category. * : 4 padas (8 + 8 + 12 + 8) containing 36 syllables in each stanza. * : 4 padas (sometimes 5 padas) containing 40 syllables in each stanza. *Tristubh: 4 padas of 11 syllables containing 44 syllabes in each stanza *Jagati: 4 padas of 12 syllables containing 48 syllables in each stanza There are several others such as: *: 4 padas of 10 syllables * ==Principles== The main principle of Vedic meter is measurement by the number of syllables. The metrical unit of verse is the pāda ("foot", "quarter"〔corresponding to a "line" rather than "foot" of Western prosody.〕), generally of eight, eleven, or twelve syllables; these are termed gayatri, tristubh and jagati respectively,〔e.g. ' 3.25–28〕 after meters of the same name. A is a stanza of typically three or four padas, with a range of two to seven found in the corpus of Vedic poetry. Stanzas may mix padas of different lengths, and strophes of two or three stanzas (respectively, pragātha and ) are common. Syllables in a pada are also classified as metrically short (laghu "light") or long (guru "heavy"): a syllable is metrically short only if it contains a short vowel and is not followed by consecutive consonants in the same pada. All other syllables are long, by quality (having a long vowel or diphthong) or by position (being followed by a consonant cluster). In contrast with Avestan literature which shows no constraints on permissible patterns of long and short syllables, the principle being solely quantitative, Vedic prosody contains a number of distinctive rhythms: * The last four syllables of a pada, termed the cadence by Indologists, are usually iambic or trochaic. This is mainly a strict alternation in the penultimate and antepenultimate syllables, as the final syllable can be of either weight. * A caesura is found after the fourth or fifth syllable in and jagatī padas, dividing the pada into an opening and break before the cadence. * The break very often starts with two short syllables. * The opening shows an iambic or trochaic tendency in keeping with the cadence, though the first syllable can be of either weight, the alternation being in the second and third. There is, however, considerable freedom in relation to the strict metrical canons of Classical Sanskrit prosody, which Arnold (1905) holds to the credit of the Vedic bards: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vedic meter」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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