प्रियदर्शिका नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - चतुरङ्क शास्त्रीय नाटिका सान्वय सटीक)

III The Metres used in the Play, their Definitions and Schemes. ━━━━━ ꩜ ━━━━━

1. Sanskrit verse is regulated by quantity, and not, as in English, by accent. A पद्य (stanza) consists usually of four पादस (quarters). A पाद is regulated either by the number of syllables (अक्षरs), or of syllable instants (मात्राs). When the पादs are all similar, it is called a समवृत्त, to which type most of the metres conform. There are अर्धसम वृत्तs, wherein the first quarter corresponds to the third, and the second to the fourth, called respectively the odd (विषम) and even (सम) quarters. A third class comprises विषमवृत्तs, but these are very seldom used.
2. The vowels अ, इ, उ, ऋ and ऌ are short, and the rest long. The quantity of a syllable is determined by its vowel. A syllable with a short vowel is called लघु ('light'), and a syllable with a long vowel is called गुरु ('heavy'). But a लघु syllable is considered as गुरु if it is followed by an anusvāra, or a visarga, or a conjunct consonant, or when it comes at the end of a पाद.¹
3. A set of three successive syllables is called a गण (foot). Marking a short syllable as ◡ and a long one as —, the different गणs,² which are 8 in number, may be exhibited as follows :— य ◡ ——, र — ◡ —, त —— ◡; भ — ◡ ◡; ज ◡ — ◡; स ◡ ◡ —, म — — —; and न ◡ ◡ ◡. In the definitions which are given below, a short syllable is indicated by the letter ल and a long one by ग.
4. The Priyadarśikā contains 49 slokas in all, of which two only are in Prākrit; and there are only seven different metres employed. So numerically and as regards the variety of metre, it is inferior to the other two plays. The Ratnā. contains 7 Prākrit stanzas and 78 in Sans. in 13 defferent metres, while the Nāgá has 123 stanzas in 12 different matres. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1 सानुस्वारश्च दीर्घश्च विसर्गी च गुरुर्भवेत् । वर्णः संयोगपूर्वश्च तथा पादान्तगोऽपि वा ॥ 2 आदिमध्यावसानेषु यरता यान्ति लाघवम् । भजसा गौरवं यान्ति मनौ तु गुरुलाघवम् ॥