प्रियदर्शिका नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - चतुरङ्क शास्त्रीय नाटिका सान्वय सटीक)

III
The Metres used in the Play, their
Definitions and Schemes.
━━━━━ ꩜ ━━━━━

1. Sanskrit verse is regulated by quantity, and not, as
   in English, by accent. A पद्य (stanza) consists usually of
   four पादस (quarters). A पाद is regulated either by the number
   of syllables (अक्षरs), or of syllable instants (मात्राs). When
   the पादs are all similar, it is called a समवृत्त, to which type
   most of the metres conform. There are अर्धसम वृत्तs, wherein
   the first quarter corresponds to the third, and the second
   to the fourth, called respectively the odd (विषम) and even
   (सम) quarters. A third class comprises विषमवृत्तs, but these
   are very seldom used.
2. The vowels अ, इ, उ, ऋ and ऌ are short, and the rest
   long. The quantity of a syllable is determined by its vowel.
   A syllable with a short vowel is called लघु ('light'), and a
   syllable with a long vowel is called गुरु ('heavy'). But a लघु
   syllable is considered as गुरु if it is followed by an anusvāra,
   or a visarga, or a conjunct consonant, or when it comes at the
   end of a पाद.¹
3. A set of three successive syllables is called a गण
   (foot). Marking a short syllable as ◡ and a long one as —,
   the different गणs,² which are 8 in number, may be exhibited
   as follows :— य ◡ ——, र — ◡ —, त —— ◡; भ — ◡ ◡; ज ◡ — ◡;
   स ◡ ◡ —, म — — —; and न ◡ ◡ ◡. In the definitions which
   are given below, a short syllable is indicated by the letter ल
   and a long one by ग.
4. The Priyadarśikā contains 49 slokas in all, of which
   two only are in Prākrit; and there are only seven different
   metres employed. So numerically and as regards the variety
   of metre, it is inferior to the other two plays. The Ratnā.
   contains 7 Prākrit stanzas and 78 in Sans. in 13 defferent
   metres, while the Nāgá has 123 stanzas in 12 different matres.
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
   1 सानुस्वारश्च दीर्घश्च विसर्गी च गुरुर्भवेत् ।
   वर्णः संयोगपूर्वश्च तथा पादान्तगोऽपि वा ॥
   2 आदिमध्यावसानेषु यरता यान्ति लाघवम् ।
   भजसा गौरवं यान्ति मनौ तु गुरुलाघवम् ॥