[INDOLOGY] krauYcapadA

[Roland Steiner]

> (1) further texts composed in *krauñcapadā*?

The Krauñcapadā is not to be found at least among the 128 metres  
listed in H.D. Velankar's paper "The Prosodical Practice of Sanskrit  
Poets" (in: The Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic  
Society, vol. 24/25, 1948/49, pp. 49-92) in which the author has  
"attempted to analyse and ascertain the actual metrical practice of  
some 28 Mahākavis [...] in Sanskrit literature from the ancient and  
medieval periods" (p. 49), including Aśvaghoṣa (Buddhacarita and  
Saundarananda).

[According to Velankar's assessment, "out of the 600 Varṇa Vṛtta Sama  
Catuṣpadīs [described in ten old treatises on Sanskrit metres] only  
about a hundred were in actual use of the poets. Out of this hundred  
again, only about 25 were employed with frequency, while the rest were  
used only for a change and ornamentation" (p. 51).]


> (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*?

In certain variant forms (vipulā) of the Anuṣṭubh metre ("Śloka") a  
caesura is required (e.g. after the fifth syllable in an uneven  
quarter of the following structure: x - v - - | - - x) which is not  
prescribed or described in metrical treatises (to the best of my  
knowledge) although it is regularly observed in Sanskrit texts.


Best wishes,
Roland Steiner