[INDOLOGY] krauYcapadA

[Dieter Gunkel]

Dear all,

I am currently looking into the Sanskrit meter known as the *krauñcapadā*.
According to the metrical treatises, the stanza contains four 25-syllable
pādas with a *yati *(|) following the 5th, 10th, and 18th syllable, which
divide the pāda into balanced 16-mora half-lines and 8-mora quarter-lines:

– v v – – | – v v – – | v v v v v v v v | v v v v v v –.

Outside of the metrical treatises, I am only aware of one text composed in
this meter, a buddhastotra edited and translated by Prof. Dieter
Schlingloff in his 1955 *Buddhistische Stotras aus ostturkistanischen
Sanskrittexten * (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag). He appropriately dubbed the
hymn "Preis der Bekehrungen Buddhas".

In the buddhastotra, the incidence of word-  and compound boundary after
the 14th and 22nd syllable is relatively high (100% and 70%, respectively),
suggesting that there might have been caesurae or caesural tendencies (,)
in those positions, roughly

– v v – – | – v v – – | v v v v , v v v v | v v v v , v v –.

The high incidence of boundaries there could in theory be due to chance,
i.e. a kind of side-effect of the *yatayaḥ *plus other characteristics of
the lexicon and grammar.

I have several questions for the list-members. Does anyone know of

(1) further texts composed in *krauñcapadā*?

(2) meters in which there are caesurae — positions in the pāda where the
poets require or prefer to locate a word- or compound boundary — that the
metrical treatises do not recognize as *yatayaḥ*?

(3) a detailed study of the distribution of word- vs. compound boundaries
at caesurae in stylistically comparable poetry, e.g. that of Mātṛceṭa or
Aśvaghoṣa?

I would be grateful for any pointers or references, as I find myself in
relatively unfamiliar territory.

Best wishes,

Dieter Gunkel


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