Outline of the Metres Home Page   Next Section

One: Scansion and Related Matters

1.7 Fluidity

In verse composition it was always considered possible to use alternate forms of words according to the needs of the metre. For that reason we sometimes find unusual forms in verse e.g. daññhu (for disvà), ghàtvà (for ghàyitvà). In the nominal inflection we sometimes find forms have alternative quantities e.g. in the masculine dative & genitive plural -©naü, and the feminine ablative singular -©to etc. As these alternatives were available in the language, they were simply employed according to convenience.