Articles on Grammar and Prosody Home Page
Meter, Phonology, and Orthography in
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
by
Franklin Edgerton
Yale University
(reproduced with permission from the
Journal of the American Oriental Society 66, 1946, pp. 197-206)
Note to the Electronic Edition
Some additions have been made for the electronic edition,
they have been placed inside curly brackets {}.
These include the Headings, the original page numbers, and a repetition
of the rules at the beginning of the examples which exemplify them,
so as to make reference to the rule easier.
All other material given in round () and square [] brackets, is the Author’s own.
Edgerton’s only footnote gave a list of abbreviations and a bibliography,
which is reproduced just below for convenience.
Some of the abbreviations and quotations have been regularly spelt out
in the electronic version, and so they are omitted from the list as given here.
Note that Edgerton’s vocabulary sometimes differs from that used elsewhere
on this website, most notably in calling syllables short and long metrically,
whereas we prefer to refer to them as being light or heavy.
The first few times this occurs in the text I note it, but not thereafter.
{Abbreviations and Bibliography}
(note that all references are to page and line of editions cited, except as stated under Bhad and Samādh below):
AbhBAW = Abhandlungen der Bayerischen der Wissenschaften
Bhad = Bhadracarī, edited Watanabe, Leipzig, 1912 (referred to by stanza number)
BHS = Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit
Dbh.g = The Gāthās of the Daśabhūmika-Sūtra, edited Rahder and Susa, Eastern Buddhist 5.337-359 and 6.51-84 (reprinted with pagination 1 - 58; I cite first the pagination of the reprint, then in parenthesis that of the original)
Divy = Divyāvadāna, edited Cowell and Neil, Cambridge, 1886
Geiger = W. Geiger, Pali, Strassburg, 1916
Gv = Gaṇḍavyūha, edited by Susuki and Idzumi, Kyoto, 1934 +
IF = Indogermanische Forschungen
KP = Kāśyapa Parivarta, edited Staël-Holstein, Shanghai, 1926
Laṅk = Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, edited Nanjio, Kyoto, 1923
LV = Lalita Vistara, edited Lefmann (lefm.), Halle, 1902 (sometimes also Calc = Lalitavistara, edited Rajendralala Mitra, Calcutta, 1877)
Mmk = Ārya-Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, edited Gaṇapati Sastri, 3 vol., Trivandrum, 1920-5
Mv = Mahāvastu, edited Senart, 3 vols., Paris, 1882-97
Pischel = R. Pischel, Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen, Strasburg, 1900
RP = Rāṣṭrapālaparipcchā, edited Finot, St. Petersburg, 1901
Samādh, followed by two simple numbers, = chapter (8, 19, 22) and section or verse of K. Régamey, Three chapters from the Samādhirājasūtra, Warsaw, 1938; Samādh, followed by ‘&1’ = (page and line of) Samādhirājasūtra, edited Das & Vidyābhūsan, Calcutta, 1896
SBE = Sacred Books of the East
Śikṣ = Śikṣāsamuccaya, edited Bendall, St. Petersburg, 1897
SP = Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, edited Kern and Nanjio (= KN), St. Petersburg, 1912 (occasional citations from WT = edited Wogihara and Tsuchida, Tokyo, 1934)
Sukh = Sukhāvatīvyūha, edited Müller and Nanjio, Oxford, 1883
Suv = Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, edited Nobel, Leipzip, 1937
Wackernagel = J. Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik
Weller = F. Weller, Uber die Prosa des Lalita Vistara, Leipzig, 1915
{Preliminary Considerations}
{p. 197} 1. The meter of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit verses throws a flood of light on the phonology of the language, and must therefore be carefully analyzed. Unfortunately it has always been misunderstood. Even {p. 198} the scholars who have come closest to understanding it have distorted the facts by introducing irrelevant considerations. For example, Kern and Nanjio (SP Preface xi) assert: ‘Regularly there is a secondary pause after the fourth or fifth foot [read ‘syllable,’ of triṣṭubh-jagatī pādas] ...; before the pause a short syllable has the value of a long one.’ And Watanabe, Bhad 26: ‘die einam Iktus vorangehende Silbe verliert leicht etwas an Dauer,’ i.e. may be treated as short, even tho long. There is absolutely no truth in either of these assertions. I shall henceforth ignore all previous discussions, none of which have much importance, and merely state what seem to me the principles governing the meter, in their relation to phonology and to the orthography actually found in our texts.
2. These matters were first set forth (very briefly) by me in an article entitled ‘The Meter of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka,’ in the Kuppuswami Sastri Commemoration Volume [Madras, 1936], pp. 39-45. Everything there stated applies in principle to all BHS verses, except that many meters occur in other texts which are not found in SP.
3. For the most part, BHS meters are quantitive, as are most classical Sanskrit meters. Fixed successions of long and short syllables {i.e. light and heavy syllables} are required in them, to approximately the same extent as in Sanskrit. In so far as such schemes apply, they apply rigidly. There are, I believe, no exceptions. Seeming exceptions are due either (1) to orthographic habits which misrepresent the actual pronunciation (somewhat in the tradition of Vedic verses), or (2) to corruptions in the tradition as found in our manuscripts and editions.
4. In spite of the obvious corruptions which distort all known manscripts of our texts, it is generally possible without emendation to eliminate the second class of seeming exceptions, in the case of texts for which several manuscripts are available. In other words, the correct reading is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, found in some manuscript of most texts, when the readings of several manuscripts are reported. Unfortunately all the editors, even the best, have so uniformly misunderstood the metrical prionciples involved that their editions need to be constantly corrected from their critical notes.
5. It must be added that the Mahāvastu tradition is unique in the extreme corruption of its manscripts. This is clearly recognized by its editor, Senart, in his Preface, i.ix. With a conscientious fidelity which we must acknowledge with appreciation, Senart records the exact readings of all six of his manuscripts as far as i.193.12, and after that of the two which he found the best and most representative. They are all so desparately (and in large measure uniformly) corrupt that it is quite pardonable that Senart failed to understand from them the principles of the meter, which can really be proved only from other texts. Once these principles are thus established, it does indeed become possible often to correct Senart’s text by restoring the readings of his manuscripts, or some of them, as quoted in his notes. But very often this is not the case, and the text of Mv must either be emended, or at least recognized as corrupt, far more than is true of any other text for which we have a reasonably responsible edition with critical apparatus.
6. We revert now to the first class of seeming exceptions to metrical regularity, those in which the traditional orthography clearly misrepresents the pronunciation.
7. By far the most important of these is the writing, as in Sanskrit, with intial consonant clusters of words which were evidently pronounced in Middle Indic fashion, with single initial consonants. This is so obvious that it could not escape, and has not escaped, the attention of any serious observer of the language. No one could read more than a few verses of any of the earlier BHS texts (such late texts as the Divyāvadāna require further study; the Divyāvadāna as printed in inconsistent and cannot be regarded as clear) without recognizing many such cases. No precise and correct formulation and interpretation of the facts has, however, been made.
8. This is not the only, tho it is the most obvious and omnipresent, way in which the usual orthography of our BHS manscripts and editions misleads us as to the actual pronunciation. Others will appear in the statement of the metrical structure to which we now proceed. It must be understood that the rules about to be stated relate to actual pronunciation, not necessarliy to conventional orthography. But when the latter is different, this fact will be made clear.
9. As stated above, most BHS metrical units contain rigidly fixed successions of long and short {p. 199} syllables. The most important exception (a partial exception, as in Sanskrit) is the anuṣṭubh or śloka. Also, the first syllable of the triṣṭubh-jagatī pāda may be either long or short. The āryā and its varieties, as in Sanskrit, are based on a count of morae (grouped in units of four), not of long and short syllables. And occassionally, in some texts (notably LV), we find other (Prakritic) meters based on a count of morae. Not all of these are clear in structure.
10. With certain minor restrictions, two short syllables may be substituted for a long; and conversely, in some meters (but not in the triṣṭubh-jagatī, at least normally), a long for two shorts (§36).
11. With a few exceptions of the sort just indicated, I think that it can reasonably be asserted that BHS verses, as originally composed, permitted no exceptions whatever to the quantitively fixed scheme of meters.
12. This is, of course, equally true of Sanskrit metrics. But in the means adopted to apply this principle, BHS differs radically from Sanskrit.
{General Rules}
13. The general facts of BHS phonology and metrics, in so far as their relation to each other seems to me interesting and important, will now be briefly stated, in the part of the article ending with §35. Examples, so far as seems necessary, will be given later §§36-77. Statements on the orthography of our texts, and its relation to actual pronunciation, will also, for the most part, be posponed to the later place. Cross references will be provided between the two parts.
14. It is virtually certain that, as in Middle Indic, clusters of more than two consonants did not exist, at least in normal pronunciation. (§§37, 38)
15. At the beginning of a word, not more than one consonant could precede the first vowel. (§§39-47)
16. A (two-consonant) cluster was always divided, the first consonant belonging to the preceding syllable.
17. A single consonant always belonged to the following syllable—except anusvāra, if this be considered a ‘consonant’ (see presently).
18. A syllable that ends on a consonant is closed. In practice this means a syllable in which the vowel in followed by two consonants (or a double consonant). (§48)
19. A syllable containing a nasalised vowel (or, a vowel followed by anusvāra, which in BHS means the same thing) is also closed, even if a vowel follows it. (§§49-52)
20. All closed syllables, and all open syllables ending in long vowels, are long {heavy}.
21. All open syllables ending in short vowels are short {light}.
22. Contrary to standard Sanskrit usage, the metrically required quantity of a syllable may be, and very commonly is, provided by phonetic alterations which never, or rarely, occur in prose.
23. Such alterations are specially common at the end of words. In general, the constituent parts of a compound word, particularly a noun compound, count, or at least may count, as separate ‘words’ in this connexion. (§§43-47)
24. Most commonly, when the last syllable of a word is required to be long, a short final vowel is replaced by a long. So
25. Instead of lengthening of the final vowel, doubling of a following initial consonant may be used as a means of lengthening the final syllable. (§62)
26. Or, thirdly, the final short vowel may be nasalized, with the same effect. (§63)
27. The reverse of all three of these processes may be employed to shorten a final syllable which is prose would be long (always or usually), but which is required to be short by the meter.
28. So a naturally long vowel may be shortened metri causa:
29. Or a word-final consonant is dropped. Cf. (13) §§18 and 48. In the prose of most texts, a final consonant of Sanskrit is regularly written. In verses there is less consistency; but in the middle of a pāda, before a word beginning in a consonant, a final Sanskrit consonant is regularly written if the syllable is required by meter to be long. The manuscripts {p. 200} and editions usually observe the rules of Sanskrit consonantal sandhi. Perhaps what was actually pronounced was a consonant assimilated in Middle Indic fashion (as if internally) to the following intial consonant. But if the syllable is metrically short, the final consonant is dropped (and the vowel before it, if long, is shortened). (§69)
30. Or, when a short syllable is required, a final nasal consonant may be dropped (with shortening of the vowel if it was long); or a final nasal vowel denasalized. (§70)
31. Generally speaking, all the above phonetic alterations may occur also in the interior of a word. (A ‘word’ here is defined as including, potentially at least, a constituent part of a compound word; §§45-47.) But they are much less common there.
32. Lengthening and shortening of internal vowels m.c. is not rare. (§§71,72)
33. But no nasal vowel (anusvāra) occurs before another vowel in the interior of a word.
34. Also: it is true that before consonants in the middle as well as at the end of a word, nasal vowel or short vowel plus anusvāra (or, plus nasal consonant of the class of the following consonant) varies freely with short unnasalized vowel plus consonant cluster (and at least could vary with long vowel, in theory). These alternations are however relatively infrequent. Furthermore, no syllabic quantitative difference is involved, and meter therefore plays no role. And otherwise there is hardly any variation between nasalisation and lack of it, internally. In short, this alternation seems rarely, if at all, to be employed for metrical convenience internally, but only, or almost only, in final-initial juncture. (§73)
35. Both doubling of single consonants and its converse, reduction of clusters to single consonants (presumably thru an intermediate stage of Middle Indic assimilation between the consonants), occur in the middle of a word, but much more rarely than in final-initial juncture. These alterations are utilized for metrical convenience, but appear to be not invariably conditioned thereby. (§§74-77)
{Examples}
36. (On §10. {With certain minor restrictions, two short syllables may be substituted for a long; and conversely, in some meters (but not in the triṣṭubh-jagatī, at least normally), a long for two shorts}) The scheme of the triṣṭubh is ⏓−⏑−−⏑⏑−⏑−× ; the jagatī is like it with substitution of ⏑× for the final × {i.e. ⏓−⏑−−⏑⏑−⏑−⏑×}. Two shorts may be substituted for the first (optionally long) syllable; also for the fourth or fifth, but never for the second, eighth, or tenth (at least in SP, and I believe the same is true in all normal BHS triṣṭubh-jagatī). The substitution is much commoner in the first syllable than in the fourth or fifth; 67 cases, against 10 in the fourth and 4 in the fifth, in SP Chapter 3 (143 stanzas, 572 pādas). In most of the more elaborate meters of LV, two shorts seem to be rather generally allowed to replace any long, and much more rarely a long may replace two shorts. This is also the usual practice in all the older BHS texts (as to Divyāvadāna cf. §7 {the Divyāvadāna as printed in inconsistent and cannot be regarded as clear}).
37. (On §14. {It is virtually certain that, as in Middle Indic, clusters of more than two consonants did not exist, at least in normal pronunciation.}) The writing of three-consonant clusters, tho quite common in the manuscripts and editions, is doubtless merely artificial, an imitation of Sanskrit orthography. Occasionally Sanskrit clusters of more than two consonants are simplified in spelling. In Mv ii.249.16 the manuscripts present a form of *
38. But more important is the indirect evidence. Since not more than one consonant could begin a word (§15), it is reasonable to infer that not more than two could form an internal cluster. Moreover, epenthetic vowels are rather frequently used to separate even two-consonant clusters, as in Middle Indic;
39. (On §15. {At the beginning of a word, not more than one consonant could precede the first vowel.}) The orthography of the manuscripts and editions only rarely accords with this, as in
40. Usually initial consonant clusters are written as in Sanskrit. But this is merely conventionalized orthography, in imitation of Sanskrit. This is proved by the meter. If the preceding syllable ends in a short vowel, that syllable is metrically short, regardless of the number of consonants written at the beginning of the following word:
41. In some of these the vowel of the preceding syllable is shortened metri causa (§28 {So a naturally long vowel may be shortened metri causa:
42. Apparent counter cases, in which a short final vowel occurs in a metrically long syllable before an intial consonant cluster, are extremely rare. Some really concern noun compounds (see below). Thus in SP 9.8; 10.7; 15.5 read
43. In the seam of verb compounds, and in their noun derivatives, conditions are in general as in the middle of a word. So
44. In compounds of the root
45. But in the seam of noun compounds, while usage varies, in the majority of cases conditions are as in final-initial juncture. That is, a syllable may be, and usually is, short if it contains a short vowel that is final in the prior member of a noun compound, even tho the following member begins with what is written Sanskritically as a consonant cluster; which can only mean that a single consonant was pronounced instead of the intial cluster. So Pali has compounds like
46. The varying treatment of compounds in this respect was no doubt originally determined, in BHS as in Middle Indic generally, by whether the compound was inherited as such from a pre-Middle Indic stage, in which case the consonant cluster remained (with possible assimilation), and the preceding syllable was long; or whether it was formed in Middle Indic, in which case the cluster was reduced to a single consonant before formation of the compound. That is, e.g. Pali (typical)
47. That the inheritance of compounds as such was the primary reason for retention of consonant clusters at the beginning of their posterior members seems confirmed by the marked difference in this regard between noun compounds and verb compounds (with their noun derivatives). The latter were mainly ancient inheritances, so that in them the consonant clusters in question were internal in Middle Indic and BHS. The majority of Middle Indic noun compounds, on the other hand, were of late, Middle Indic origin, so that their posterior members could not begin in more than one consonant.
48. (On §18. {A syllable that ends on a consonant is closed. In practice this means a syllable in which the vowel in followed by two consonants (or a double consonant).}) It is likely that, as in Middle Indic a consonant could not exist in absolutely final position, before a pause (unless anusvāra be called a ‘consonant’, see just below). To be sure it is often written there, but this may be mere imitation of Sanskrit orthography. However since the quantity of final syllables in verse-pādas is indifferent, the question has no importance for metrics, and so metrics throws no light on phonology {here}.
49. (on §19. {A syllable containing a nasalised vowel (or, a vowel followed by anusvāra, which in BHS means the same thing) is also closed, even if a vowel follows it.}) It seems certain that, as in Middle Indic, every word-final nasal (if preserved at all) ‘became anusvāra’ (in terms of writing); or, as I prefer to put it, resulted in nasalization of the preceding vowel: except that before a following initial vowel it could remain as a nasal consonant. Such is the case in Middle Indic, notably in Pali—prose as well as verse.
50. This option before a vowel is constantly utilized for metrical convenience in BHS verses. (I have thought I detected a similar custom in the Apabhraṁśa verses of the Sanatkumāracarita, but have not studied them sufficiently as yet.) If the word-final syllable is required to be long, they write e.g. -
51. On the other hand, in word final position before a consonant and in sentence-final position,
52. I find little evidence tending to show the distinction noted in the authorities for both Sanskrit and Prakrit (Wackernagel I §§223-4; Pischel 178ff.) between nasal vowels, anusvāra, and anunāsika. Practically always, what is written as either anusvāra or a nasal consonant makes a syllable long metrically (in the case of a nasal consonant, only {p. 203} when a consonant follows). The only exception I have noted is the word
53. (On §24. {Most commonly, when the last syllable of a word is required to be long, a short final vowel is replaced by a long. So
54. We also find
55. In my opinion there is no possibility of any connexion between BHS
56. The frequency of this problem varies in different texts, if we accept the testimony of the manuscripts and editions. In SP it is common, even in the Kern-Nanjio edition, and would be still commoner in a proper edition; often Kern-Nanjio read -
57. A few examples:
58. Examples of
59. Whether
60. Examples of
61. In a few instances we seem to find -
62. (On §25. {Instead of lengthening of the final vowel, doubling of a following consonant may be used as a means of lengthening the final syllable.}) So:
63. (On §26. {Or, thirdly, the final short vowel may be nasalized, with the same effect.}) So:
64. (On §28. {So a naturally long vowel may be shortened metri causa:
65. Examples of
66. Long
67. We find shortening of final
68. Examples of
69. (On §29. {Or a word-final consonant is dropped. Cf. (13) §§18 and 48. In the prose of most texts, a final consonant of Sanskrit is regularly written. In verses there is less consistency; but in the middle of a pāda, before a word beginning in a consonant, a final Sanskrit consonant is regularly written if the syllable is required by meter to be long. The manuscripts and editions usually observe the rules of Sanskrit consonantal sandhi. Perhaps what was actually pronounced was a consonant assimilated in Middle Indic fashion (as if internally) to the following intial consonant. But if the syllable is metrically short, the final consonant is dropped (and the vowel before it, if long, is shortened).}) As to the writing of final consonants, the manuscripts of Mv are exceptional in that very often omit them even in prose (e.g.
70. (On §30. {Or, when a short syllable is required, a final nasal consonant may be dropped (with shortening of the vowel if it was long); or a final nasal vowel denasalized.}) So
71. (On §32. {Lengthening and shortening of internal vowels m.c. is not rare.}) Lengthening:
72. Shortening:
73. (On §34. {Also: it is true that before consonants in the middle as well as at the end of a word, nasal vowel or short vowel plus anusvāra (or, plus nasal consonant of the class of the following consonant) varies freely with short unnasalized vowel plus consonant cluster (and at least could vary with long vowel, in theory). These alternations are however relatively infrequent. Furthermore, no syllabic quantative difference is involved, and meter therefore plays no role. And otherwise there is hardly any variation between nasalisation and lack of it, internally. In short, this alternation seems rarely, if at all, to be employed for metrical convenience internally, but only, or almost only, in final-initial juncture.}) My records contain only a single case, which I consider clear, of internal dropping of nasal m.c. In Mv i.305.21 we must, I think, read
74. (On §35. {Both doubling of single consonants and its converse, reduction of clusters to single consonants (presumably thru an intermediate stage of Middle Indic assimilation between the consonants), occur in the middle of a word, but much more rarely than in final-initial juncture. These alterations are utilized for metrical convenience, but appear to be not invariably conditioned thereby.}) Double for single consonant internally, for what may be metrical reasons, has been noted only in
75. Commoner is reduction of a (Sanskrit) consonant cluster (a Middle Indic double consonant) to a single consonant when meter requires a short syllable. BHS very often uses
76. Other cases:
77. Here, rather than above (cf. §43), belong cases of metrical shortening in the seam of close{