CHAPTER V.
ON METRES PECULIAR TO SANSCRIT POETRY.
96. A Few only of the Sanscrit metres have not been introduced into Telugu, and the following statements will complete the Prosody of both languages: they are principally abstracted from Mr. Colebrouke's learned essay on Sanscrit and Pracrit Prosody, in the eleventh volume of the Asiatic Researches; an essay remarkable for exact accuracy in every part, and particularly in the extensive and complicate tables of the metres there explained.
97. A different'arrangement, however, is here adopted, for Mr. Colebrooke following the plan of the Sanscrit writers, places first what is most difficult, while in the present work the precedence has been given to what is easy.
98. Rhyme is very rarely used in Sanscrit verse, but several sorts are admissible. The caesura or pause in the line, whether rhyme be used or not, is named yati. Prasa very seldom occurs: while the antya niyama or rhyming terminations connecting two or four lines (exactly as in English) may often be admitted.
99. The Sloca (or Vactra) is also named Anushtubh and may be considered the Sanscrit heroic metre. It is in couplets formed of two similar lines, of
