SANSKRIT PROSODY AND NUMERICAL SYMBOLS EXPLAINED BY CHARLES PHILIP BROWN, M.R.A.S. AUTHOR OF A TELUGU DICTIONARY, GRAMMAR, ETC. PROFESSOR OF TELUGU IN PREFACE. SANSKRIT LITERATURE is chiefly in verse. The poems and plays, the histories and legends, treatises on law, divinity, astronomy, mathematicks, and indeed nearly all literature being in metre. The "Prosody is easy and beautiful," says Sir William Jones. "It is infinitely more rich and more varied," observes the learned Chézy, "than that of Greek; and has no syllables of doubtful quantity." The venerable Colebrooke (Essays ii. 62) speaks of the aid it affords in deciphering passages rendered obscure by the inaccuracy of the transcripts: he notices that the artifice of its construction is peculiar, and not devoid of ingenuity; and it is richer than that of any other language. Yet many who have attempted the study in India, guided by a Pandit, complain that the art is intricate. Indeed most of the aspirants have been disheartened (as I was at first); for the Prosody is overlaid with a profusion of pedantic refinements, arithmetical and superstitious. Most of the rules in the Sanskrit Prosodies are intended to guide composers, not learners. |