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Strategies for Metrical Analysis of Sanskrit Text

Conference Paper · November 2006

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Diwakar Mishra Girish Nath Jha

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 Strategies for Metrical Analysis of Sanskrit Text

Diwakar Mishra
diwakarmishra@gmail.com

Girish Nath Jha

girishj@mail.jnu.ac.in

Special Center for Sanskrit Studies

J.N.U., New Delhi-110067

ABSTRACT

In this paper author presents a model for metric analysis of Sanskrit poetry text.
Sanskrit poets have composed their compositions both in prose and poetry. Their poetry
is in several chandas. Though these chandas are very complicated with a fixed order of
length of syllables, they have followed them strictly. This feature makes them good for
their computational analysis. The chanda can be recognized in following three steps:
To mark all the vowels.
To mark vowels as laghu/guru.
To map the order of the line with the definitions of the chandas and identify the
chanda.
Using these steps, the system can be built for the text written in diacritics, i-trans
or Unicode. Here the system of authors is competent in analyzing the devanagari text
written in Unicode.

1. Introduction

This paper presents a model for computational recognition and analysis system
for Sanskrit chandas. We can generally say, any composition which has a musical sound,
is called chanda. Chanda has been one of the Ved gas since Vedic period. Vedic verses
are composed in several chandas. The number of Vedic chandas is 21, out of which 7 are
mainly used. Earliest poetic composition in public language (laukika Sanskrit) started
from Valmiki, later it became a fashion and then a discipline for composition (k vya).
But here has been a difference in Vedic and laukika chandas. Where Vedic
chnadas are identified by the number of syllables (var a or ak ara) in a line of verse or
whole verse and the number of lines in the verse, laukika chanda is identified by the order
of the laghu-guru syllables. The number of the laukika chandas is not yet finally defined
but many texts have been composed describing the different number of chandas. Each
chanda of laukika Sanskrit (post Vedic Sanskrit) consists of four p das or caranas, that is,
the fourth part of the chanda.
1.1 Previous works

Old Indian scholars and modern researchers have done much works on meter and
metrics. A paper presented by Ousaka Yumi in 13th World Sanskrit Congress; Edinburgh,
Scotland; July, 10 to 14, 2006, can be listed here. The title of the paper is- A new Meter
Analysis in Middle Indo-Aryan on the Basis of Neuro Network Assisted by Discriminant
Analysis. I do not have details of it. No other computational system for Metric analysis is
found till date, as I could search.

2 Meter

Meter is a musical composition which has mainly two kinds: 1) J ti or m trika

chanda, and 2) v tta or varnika chanda.
The distinction of the two types of the chandas is based on the counting of the
numbers of the matras or the order of laghu- guru syllable.

2.1 J ti

This type of chanda is determined by the counting of m tr s of syllables, taking

laghu (short) as 1 and guru (long) as 2. These may be of two types:
1. sama chanda- which has equal number of matras in all the four p das of the
chanda.
2. vi ama chanda- which does not have equal number of m tr s in all the four p das
of the chanda.

2.2 V tta

V tta is the chanda which has an order or the system and fixed number of
syllables in each pada (carana). These are of three types:
1. samav tta- in which all the four caranas of the chanda are identical, i.e., having
identical ordering of short-long syllables.
2. ardhasamav tta- in which the 1st and 3rd caranas as well as 2nd and 4th are identical
with each other.
3. vishamav tta- in which none of the carana of the chanda is identical with any
other carana of it.

2.3 M tr

M tr means length. Short vowel such as ‘a’ has one m tr and long vowel have
two m tr s. If a short vowel is followed by a combined consonant, nasal sound
(anusv ra) or visarga, this type of short vowel has also two m tr s. The short m tr in the
end of a p da may be considered as long (guru) or two m tr s when required. This
definition of laghu and guru is also given in three sutras of P ini:
1. hrasvam laghu (P. 1.4.10)
2. samyoge guru (P. 1.4.11)
3. d rgham ca (P.1.4.12)
2.4 Ga a

Ga as are the triplets of the syllables having different order of short and long. The
ga as are 8, according to all possible triplets of laghu and guru order. This system
reduces the counting of the syllables and makes easy to remember the long order.
These ga as derive from a sutra of c rya Pi gala. That is
yamAtArAjabhAnasalagA.
The ga a is named after the first consonant and the order in it is similar as the
triplet derived from this sutra. Order is represented by the symbol of laghu “I” and that of
guru “S”.

1. yaga a [yamAtA]=ISS
2. maga a [mAtArA]=SSS
3. taga a [tArAja]=SSI
4. raga a [rAjabhA]=SIS
5. jaga a [jabhAna]=ISI
6. bhaga a [bhAnasa]=SII
7. naga a [nasala]=III
8. saga a [salagA]=IIS

The definition is given in the order of the ga a or laghu, guru, for example, the
definition of indravajr is taujagauga . It means, ta ta ja ga ga, that is taga a, taga a,
jaga a, guru, guru or SSI SSI ISI S S = 17 syllables.

3 The Metrical Analysis System

The system requires the identification of combined syllables, short and long
vowels, and the separation of the four p das or caranas. Identification of the limit of the
chanda may be done by finding punctuations ( , . | ; : || etc.). Oftenly, the pairs of p das
are written without punctuation, but but it can be identified by the habit of writing
chandas, that is a chanda ends with double full stop ( || ) and the two p das end with one
single full stop ( | ).
The identification of long and short vowels and combined syllables can be
comparatively done easily in the document written in i-trans or in ISAT because these are
phonetic based standards. It is comparatively difficult when the document is written in
Unicode because it is not phonetic based. Here ‘k’ is not the substring of ‘ka’ but ‘ka’ is
substring of ‘k’. So this paper mainly focuses on metrical analysis of Unicode Sanskrit
text.
The system works according to the following algorithm:
1. find the ending of the chanda by “||” and mid of it by “|”.
2. if “||” is not present in the text then find the end limit by “|” (single pipe) or “.” (dot)
and mid by comma, semicolon, colon, slash, backslash etc.
3. in whole chanda find all halantas (U+094D).
4. now select the nominal Unicode characters which are either followed by other
nominal character or by m tr of some vowel (U+093E to U+094C) or by anusv ra
(U+0902) or by visarga (U+0903), mark these as var as.
5. assign the values of laghu (I) and guru (S) to these var as according to the following
rules:
5.1. var a (as in step 3) followed by m tr of some long vowel or followed by some
anusv ra (U+0902) or visarga (U+0903) is long syllable or guru var a.
5.2. the nearest var a before halanta (U+094D) is also long syllable or guru var a.
5.3. the rest var as are short vowels or laghu var as.
6. now match this order of laghu-guru with the orders given in the definitions of
different chandas (the definition of the chanda will be given in the order of “I” and
“S”). For it follow the following order of mapping/sub-steps:
6.1. choose the definition of the chanda which has equal number of var as as the
given var a has.
6.2. first, map with the definition of the vi amav tta (2.2[3]) and apply on the full
chanda.
6.3. if fails, then map with the definition of ardhasamav tta (2.2[2]) and apply on the
both halves of the given chanda.
6.4. if fails, then divide both halves of chandas into two equal parts (in terms of
number of var as) each (if possible) and map each quarter (p da) with the
definition of samavritta (2.2[1]).
6.5. if fails, rejoin the pairs of the p das and assign the value 1 to “I” and 2 to “S”.
6.6. count the matras in both the halves of chandas and check these numbers of
matras are matching with how many of definitions of m trika chandas or j ti
(2.1).
6.7. match one by one definitions of these by adding matras cumulatively that if the
configuration of m tr s in four p das of the defined chanda is possible in those of
given chanda.
6.8. in case, chanda has 32 var as, check anu up in last, as this chanda has mixed
features of m trika and var ika chanda.
7. if result comes till step 6.4, declare the first result. But if it comes after that, then give
all the results.

4 Limitations and Future Upgrades

As it analyses the Unicode text only and that in Devanagari only, it is less useful
for those who do not know Devanagari but have interest in Sanskrit.
The system in future can be extended to analyze the texts in i-trans and ISAT
(diacritics) also. First the system will recognize that in which standard the text is, and
then will analyze the text using the part of the system compatible to that.

5 Conclusion

The writing in a particular chanda is more or less part of the style of that
particular poet. Some particular chandas are regarded to be specific in the expression of
some particular expression. This metric analysis is a short effort in the field of higher in
 level than syntax but it is far easier than syntactic processing. It has been possible due to
great scholarly analytical works of ancestors here is also a great contribution of Sanskrit
composers who followed the architect of the chanda strictly, though having gone
inventing newer chandas. This caused meter easily compatible to analyze
computationally.

6 References

[1] Pingala; Chandah-sutra

[2] Shastri, Ved Prakash and Pandey, Ramesh Kumar; Neeta Sanskrit Dictionary; Delhi, Neeta
prakashan; edition-first; 1999.
[3] Kalidas; Shrutabodha; Lucknow, Prakashan Kendra; 2000.
[4] Apte, Vamana Shivram; Sanskrit English Dictionary.

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