2. Chandas - Vedanga

[jayam1]

The seven birds: major Sanskrit metres

The Vedic Sanskrit prosody included both linear and non-linear systems. The field of Chandas was organized around seven major metres, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, called the "seven birds" or "seven mouths of Brihaspati", and each had its own rhythm, movements and aesthetics. The system mapped a non-linear structure (aperiodicity) into a four verse polymorphic linear sequence.

The seven major ancient Sanskrit metres are the three 8-syllable Gāyatrī, the four 8-syllable Anustubh, the four 11-syllable Tristubh, the four 12-syllable Jagati, and the mixed pāda metres named Ushnih, Brihati and Pankti.

गायत्रेण प्रति मिमीते अर्कमर्केण साम त्रैष्टुभेन वाकम् ।
वाकेन वाकं द्विपदा चतुष्पदाक्षरेण मिमते सप्त वाणीः ॥२४॥

gāyatréṇa práti mimīte arkám
arkéṇa sā́ma traíṣṭubhena vākám
vākéna vākáṃ dvipádā cátuṣpadā
akṣáreṇa mimate saptá vā́ṇīḥ

With the Gayatri, he measures a song; with the song – a chant; with the Tristubh – a recited stanza;
With the stanza of two feet and four feet – a hymn; with the syllable they measure the seven voices. ॥24॥

— Rigveda 1.164.24, Translated by Tatyana J. Elizarenkova

[jayam1]

   

[jayam1]

Other syllable-based metres

Beyond these seven metres, ancient and medieval era Sanskrit scholars developed numerous other syllable-based metres (Akshara-chandas). Examples include Atijagati (13x4, in 16 varieties), Shakvari (14x4, in 20 varieties), Atishakvari (15x4, in 18 varieties), Ashti (16x4, in 12 varieties), Atyashti (17x4, in 17 varieties), Dhriti (18x4, in 17 varieties), Atidhriti (19x4, in 13 varieties), Kriti (20x4, in 4 varieties) and so on.

[jayam1]

Morae-based metres

In addition to the syllable-based metres, Hindu scholars in their prosody studies, developed Gana-chandas or Gana-vritta, that is metres based on mātrās (morae, instants). The metric foot in these are designed from laghu (short) morae or their equivalents. Sixteen classes of these instants-based metres are enumerated in Sanskrit prosody, each class has sixteen sub-species. 
Examples include Arya, Udgiti, Upagiti, Giti and Aryagiti. This style of composition is less common than syllable-based metric texts, but found in important texts of Hindu philosophy, drama, lyrical works and Prakrit poetry. The entire Samkhyakarika text of the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy is composed in Arya metre, as are many chapters in the mathematical treatises of Aryabhata, and some texts of Kalidasa.

[jayam1]

Hybrid metres

Indian scholars also developed a hybrid class of Sanskrit metres, which combined features of the syllable-based metres and morae-based metres. These were called Matra-chandas. Examples of this group of metres include Vaitaliya, Matrasamaka and Gityarya. The Hindu texts Kirātārjunīya and Naishadha Charita, for instance, feature complete cantos that are entirely crafted in the Vaitaliya metre.

[jayam1]

Metres as tools for literary architecture

The Vedic texts, and later Sanskrit literature, were composed in a manner where a change in metres was an embedded code to inform the reciter and audience that it marks the end of a section or chapter. Each section or chapter of these texts uses identical metres, rhythmically presenting their ideas and making it easier to remember, recall and check for accuracy.

Similarly, the authors of Sanskrit hymns used metres as tools of literary architecture, wherein they coded a hymn's end by frequently using a verse of a metre different from that used in the hymn's body. However, they never used Gayatri metre to end a hymn or composition, possibly because it enjoyed a special level of reverence in Hindu texts. In general, all metres were sacred and the Vedic chants and hymns attribute the perfection and beauty of the metres to divine origins, referring to them as mythological characters or equivalent to gods.

[jayam1]

Use of metre to identify corrupt texts

The verse perfection in the Vedic texts, verse Upanishads and Smriti texts has led some Indologists from the 19th century onwards to identify suspected portions of texts where a line or sections are off the expected metre.

Some editors have controversially used this metri causa principle to emend Sanskrit verses, assuming that their creative conjectural rewriting with similar-sounding words will restore the metre. This practice has been criticized, states Patrick Olivelle, because such modern corrections may be changing the meaning, adding to corruption, and imposing the modern pronunciation of words on ancient times when the same syllable or morae may have been pronounced differently.

Large and significant changes in metre, wherein the metre of succeeding sections return to earlier sections, are sometimes thought to be an indication of later interpolations and insertion of text into a Sanskrit manuscript, or that the text is a compilation of works of different authors and time periods. However, some metres are easy to preserve and a consistent metre does not mean an authentic manuscript. This practice has also been questioned when applied to certain texts such as ancient and medieval era Buddhist manuscripts, as this may reflect versatility of the author or changing styles over author's lifetime.

[jayam1]

Chandah Sutra

The Chandah Sutra is also known as Chandah sastra, or Pingala Sutras after its author Pingala. It is the oldest Hindu treatise on prosody to have survived into the modern era. This text is structured in 8 books, with a cumulative total of 310 sutras. It is a collection of aphorisms predominantly focused on the art of poetic metres, and presents some mathematics in the service of music.

[jayam1]

Bhashyas

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2016)
There have been numerous Bhashyas (commentaries) of the Chanda sastra over centuries. These are:

Chandoratnakara: The 11th-century bhashya on Pingala's Chandah Sutra by Ratnakarashanti, called Chandoratnakara, added new ideas to Prakrit poetry, and this was influential to prosody in Nepal, and to the Buddhist prosody culture in Tibet where the field was also known as chandas or sdeb sbyor.

Chandahsutrabhasyaraja: The 18th century commentary of the Chandra Sastra by Bhaskararaya.

[jayam1]

Usage : Post-vedic poetry, epics

The Hindu epics and the post-Vedic classical Sanskrit poetry is typically structured as quatrains of four pādas (lines), with the metrical structure of each pāda completely specified. In some cases, pairs of pādas may be scanned together as the hemistichs of a couplet. This is typical for the shloka used in epic. It is then normal for the pādas comprising a pair to have different structures, to complement each other aesthetically. In other metres, the four pādas of a stanza have the same structure.

The Anushtubh Vedic metre became the most popular in classical and post-classical Sanskrit works. It is octosyllabic, like the Gayatri metre that is sacred to the Hindus. The Anushtubh is present in Vedic texts, but its presence is minor, and Trishtubh and Gayatri metres dominate in the Rigveda for example. A dominating presence of the Anushtubh metre in a text is a marker that the text is likely post-Vedic.

The Mahabharata, for example, features many verse metres in its chapters, but an overwhelming proportion of the stanzas, 95% are shlokas of the anustubh type, and most of the rest are tristubhs.