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24-405: According to the penultimate verse of the text, it contains 100 chapters in less than 4000 shlokas (verses). Sudhakara Dvivedi 's edition of the text, with Utpala 's commentary, contains 105 chapters, plus the last chapter containing the table of contents; H. Kern 's edition contains an additional chapter (#36) titled Raja-lakshnam . According to Utpala, Varahamihira excludes five chapters from

48-422: A pathyā ("normal") form or one of several vipulā ("extended") forms. The form of the second foot of the first pāda (II.) limits the possible patterns the first foot (I.) may assume. The scheme below, given by Macdonell, shows his understanding of the form of the śloka in the classical period of Sanskrit literature (4th–11th centuries CE): [REDACTED] In poems of the intermediate period, such as

72-407: A śloka is recited, performers sometimes leave a pause after each pāda , at other times only after the second pāda . (See External links.) A Shloka has to be composed in a specific metre (chhanda), with a specific number of lines with a specific number of words per line, each word could be a mantra. For example, viṣṇu sahastranāma is in anuṣṭup chhanda (two lines of four words each). A mantra, on

96-491: A Persian translation of Brhat-samhita , for the Delhi Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq . For modern scholars, the wide range of the text makes it a very useful source of history about the contemporary period. Printed editions and translations of the text include: Shloka Shloka or śloka ( Sanskrit : श्लोक śloka , from the root श्रु śru , lit.   ' hear ' in

120-593: A broader sense, according to Monier-Williams's dictionary, is "any verse or stanza; a proverb, saying"; but in particular it refers to the 32- syllable verse, derived from the Vedic anuṣṭubh metre, used in the Bhagavad Gita and many other works of classical Sanskrit literature. In its usual form it consists of four pādas or quarter-verses, of eight syllables each, or (according to an alternative analysis) of two half-verses of 16 syllables each. The metre

144-471: Is a Vedic metre of 44 syllables (four padas of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this metre. It is the most prevalent metre of the Rigveda , accounting for roughly 40% of its verses. The Trishtubh pada contains a "break" or caesura , after either four or five syllables, necessarily at a word-boundary and if possible at a syntactic break. Different scholars have different methods of showing

168-793: Is similar to the Vedic anuṣṭubh metre, but with stricter rules. The śloka is the basis for Indian epic poetry , and may be considered the Indian verse form par excellence , occurring as it does far more frequently than any other metre in classical Sanskrit poetry . The śloka is the verse-form generally used in the Mahabharata , the Ramayana , the Puranas , Smritis , and scientific treatises of Hinduism such as Sushruta Samhita and Charaka Samhita . The Mahabharata , for example, features many verse metres in its chapters, but 95% of

192-685: The na- , bha- , ma- , and ra-vipulā . A fifth vipulā , known as the minor Ionic, in which the first pāda ends | u u – x |, is sometimes found in the Mahābhārata , although rarely. Macdonell's chart given above is in fact too restrictive with regard the first four syllables in a vipulā verse. For example, the first quarter verse of the Rāmayaṇa (critical edition) contains a na-vipulā and scans ⏑ – – – ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ – ( tapaḥsvādhyāyanirataṃ ). Other examples are easy to find among classical poets, e.g., Rāmacarita 1.76 manyur dehāvadhir ayaṃ – – – – ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ –. In

216-581: The Bhagavad Gita , a fourth vipulā is found. This occurs 28 times in the Bhagavad Gita, that is, as often as the third vipulā . When this vipulā is used, there is a word-break (caesura) after the fourth syllable: Two rules that always apply are: The pathyā and vipulā half-verses are arranged in the table above in order of frequency of occurrence. Out of 2579 half-verses taken from Kalidasa , Bharavi , Magha , and Bilhana , each of

240-510: The author of the Rāmāyaṇa , in grief on seeing a hunter shoot down one of two birds in love. On seeing the sorrow (śoka) of the widowed bird, he was reminded of the sorrow Sītā felt on being separated from Shri Rama and began composing the Ramayana in shlokas. For this he is called the Ādikavi (first poet.) Each 16-syllable hemistich (half-verse), of two 8-syllable pādas , can take either

264-492: The comparative metrist Paul Kiparsky (2018). Because the line is catalectic , the final four syllables form a trochaic cadence. A statistical study of 600 lines by Randle shows that 75% of triṣṭubh lines start with an iambic pattern (x – x –). The opening x u – – accounts for another 10%, x – ᴗ ᴗ for 6%, and x – – ᴗ for 4%. The second measure tends not to be fully iambic: x – ᴗ – occurs in less than 7% of lines and x – – – hardly at all. The most common forms of

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288-497: The contents, thus arriving at 100 as the number of chapters; However, Varahamihira himself excludes 3 more chapters from the table of contents, bringing the number of chapters to only 97; so, it is not clear how exactly is the number 100 is arrived at. Utpala cites the authorship of one of the excluded chapters to Vidhya-vasin. He also declares four verses to be spurious, and does not comment on two additional verses, which suggests that these may be later interpolations. The contents of

312-442: The earliest texts that have survived. Several chapters of the text - such as Chitraymayura , Drgargala ( Jalagala-shastra ) and Prasada-lakshana - were studied as independent treatises by later scholars, who regarded Varāhamihira as an authority on a variety of topics. 11th-century Iranian scholar Al-Biruni also quotes Brhat-samhita. Abd Al-Aziz ibn Shams ibn Baha' Nuri Dihlavwi (fl. c. 1350/1375) composed Tarjamah i Barahi ,

336-448: The following is common: An example of a triṣṭubh stanza is RV 2 .3.1: Following Randle's division, the above lines can be scanned as follows: The Avesta has a parallel stanza of 4x11 syllables with a caesura after the fourth syllable. Trishtubh verses are also used in later literature, its archaic associations used to press home a "Vedic" character of the poetry. The Bhagavad Gita , while mostly composed in shloka (developed from

360-410: The following percentages in the various positions: The two caesura positions (after the 4th or 5th syllable) according to Randle's statistics, are almost exactly equally common overall. But when the second measure is – ᴗ ᴗ –, a caesura after the 5th syllable is four times more common. Thus, summing up the statistics above, the most common scheme is: But when the caesura comes after the 4th syllable,

384-481: The four admissible forms of śloka in this order claims the following share: 2289, 116, 89, 85; that is, 89% of the half-verses have the regular pathyā form. The various vipulā s, in the order above, are known to scholars writing in English as the first, second, third and fourth vipulā , or the paeanic , choriambic , molossic , and trochaic vipulā respectively. In Sanskrit writers, they are referred to as

408-552: The frequency of the vipulā s and the patterns in the earlier part of the pāda have been carried out to try to establish the preferences of various authors for different metrical patterns. It is believed that this may help to establish relative dates for the poems, and to identify interpolated passages. A typical śloka is the following, which opens the Bhagavad Gita : From the period of high classical Sanskrit literature comes this benediction, which opens Bāṇabhaṭṭa 's biographical poem Harṣacaritam (7th century CE): When

432-403: The ma-vipulā, a caesura is not obligatory after the fifth syllable, e.g., Śiśupālavadha 2.1a yiyakṣamāṇenāhūtaḥ ⏑ – ⏑ – – – – –. Noteworthy is the avoidance of an iambic cadence in the first pāda . By comparison, syllables 5–8 of any pāda in the old Vedic anuṣṭubh metre typically had the iambic ending u – u x (where "x" represents an anceps syllable). Statistical studies examining

456-640: The most frequent) in the Brihat-samhita . Varāhamihira's text became far more popular than earlier similar texts, because of its comprehensiveness, lucidity, appealing presentation, and literary merit. He wrote an abridged version of the text, Samāsa Saṃhitā , which is now lost and is known only from Utpala's commentary on Brhat-samhita . According to Varāhamihira, in some verses he was merely summarizing earlier existing literature on astronomy, Shilpa Sastra and temple architecture, yet his presentation of different theories and models of design are among

480-468: The other hand, is prefixed by omkara (primordial sound) and suffixed by the essential nama (name) and the salutary word nama (salutation) between the prefix and the suffix. No metre is prescribed. The lyrics in any Vārnic or matric metres are shlokas, but stanzas from Vedic hymns are not shloka, despite it being a common mistake to think this. Tristubh Trishtubh ( Sanskrit : त्रिष्टुभ् , IPA: [tɽɪˈʂʈʊbʱ] , IAST : Triṣṭubh )

504-438: The second measure are x ᴗ ᴗ – (63%) and x ᴗ – – (30%). When x ᴗ – – is used, the caesura always follows the 4th syllable. Another study, by Gunkel and Ryan (2011), based on a much larger corpus, confirms the above and shows that the propensity for a syllable to be long in a triṣṭubh is greatest in the 2nd, 4th, 5th 8th and 10th positions of the line, while the 6th and 9th are almost always short. Long (heavy) syllables are found in

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528-519: The stanzas are ślokas of the anuṣṭubh type, and most of the rest are tristubh s. The anuṣṭubh is found in Vedic texts, but its presence is minor, and triṣṭubh and gāyatrī metres dominate in the Rigveda . A dominating presence of ślokas in a text is a marker that the text is likely post-Vedic. The traditional view is that this form of verse was involuntarily composed by Vālmīki ,

552-401: The structure of the line. Thus Hermann Oldenberg (1888) divided the line into three sections by placing one break at the caesura and another break four syllables before the end: E. Vernon Arnold (1905) divided it into 4 + 3 + 4 syllables, whatever the caesura: A more recent author, H. N. Randle (1957), on the other hand, divides it 4 + 4 + 3: The division 4 + 4 + 3 is also favoured by

576-420: The text fall into two major categories: anga and upanga . The anga discusses divination based on planets, asterisms , and zodiac signs. The upanga discusses a wide variety of other topics, as listed above. Varāhamihira does not discuss several traditional topics which he considers legendary and unscientific. The text displays Varāhamihira's skill as a poet: it uses at least 63 different metres (Arya being

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