Dear Dr Jean- Luc Chevillard,
Your "This is not true!" probably is to my
>4. For a Dravidian 'origin' of SSR to be considered the following are the hurdles:
>a. SSR of Dravidian verse and lyrical meters is intra-line and the SSR of Sanskrit meters either as used in languages of the south or in cases such as gOpIgItam of >Sanskrit, is inter-line.
Thanks for the examples of inter-line SSR from tolkAppiyam.
Does your
> If you can provde massive evidence from ancient Tamil literature in order to support your statement, please do
refer to my
> SSR of Dravidian verse and lyrical meters is intra-line ?
Your position with regard to this is
>I believe "intra-line" SSR is less frequent
So you are asking me to provide me to provide massive number of examples for intra-line SSR from ancient Tamil literature. Did I get you right?
-No. I am not in a position right now to provide massive number of examples for intra-line SSR from ancient Tamil literature. I need time to browse through the corpus I have to see if this is true with ancient Tamil literature.
All that I can tell you readily with authenticity is that in Telugu, which is one of the Dravidian languages, intra-line SSR is part of the rules of all the native verse meters but as an alternative to intra-line FSR. The rule of line-break is based on feet count unlike the syllable count in Sanskrit meters. Since it is part of rule, naturally there are massive number of examples in Telugu for intra-line SSR , spread all over the Telugu verse literature employing native Telugu meters.
Sri Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan in
says,
The second syllable rhyme can also occur within a line in different patterns. Assuming there are are four feet in a line, the second-syllable rhyming can occur in different patterns such as between feet 1 and 2; 1 and 3; 1 and 4; 1, 2, and 3; 1, 3, and 4; 1, 2, and 4; and 1, 2, 3, and 4.
So the Tamil situation is similar to Telugu at least in so far as 'The rule of line-break is based on feet count unlike the syllable count in Sanskrit meters'.
If inter-line SSR is so massive in ancient Tamil literature, origin of the inter-line SSR in Sanskrit borrowed Telugu verse meters can probably be traced to an older Dravidian situation. That becoming a strict rule for Sanskrit borrowed Telugu verse meters could be specific to Telugu prosody.
If inter-line SSR in ancient Tamil lyrical literature is proved to be a regular lyrical meter device, the gOpIgItam's SSR can safely get connected to a Tamil or Dravidian origin.
Quantity rules are rigidly ingrained in Sanskrit meters; so one may explain the quantity correspondence of initial vowel in the SSR of gOpIgItam in terms of the rigidly ingrained vowel quantity pattern rules in Sanskrit meters. That is another problem area in the topic.