The Sanskrit Text of Buddha-carita Aśvaghoṣa - buddhanet-de-index

Introduction to the Text - 82. Vaṁśastha (124 verses)Closely related to the Upajāti meter is Vaṁśastha, which is derived from the 12syllable Jagatī class of metres. The metre though is much more restricted thatUpajāti or Jagatī, having a very definite scheme to the metre that occurs in all fourlines:⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏑×which is similar then to the Upendravajrā metre (⏑−⏑−¦−⏑⏑¦−⏑−⏓) in theUpajāti class, with an extra light syllable in penultimate position. Here again thecaesura is of no significance.Nearly the whole of Chapter VIII is written in this metre; and it’s Classicalstructure also made it a favorite at the conclusion of Chapters in the work, so that arun of 16 verses in Vaṁśastha metre is used to conclude Chapter XII, and there are3 verses in this metre at the conclusion of Chapter VI; besides these Vaṁśastha isalso used as a run up to the concluding verse in a different metre in Chapters III,IV, IX, and XIII.3. Śloka (297 verses)I have elsewhere described the Śloka metre, as being an Addhasamavutta metre. 1This holds true for the early stages of Indian prosody, but by Aśvaghoṣa’s time, theAddhasamavutta metres had changed considerably, in that nearly all the syllablesare fixed in weight, and the Śloka, which has very variable quantities will nolonger fit into the category.By far the most common form of the metre is the pathyā, which in this text showsthe following form:⏓⏓⏓⏓¦⏑−−⏓¦¦⏓⏓⏓⏓¦⏑−⏑×in the 2nd and 3rd positions of each pāda, two successive light syllables are notallowed; and in the opening of the posterior half of the line the pattern ⏓−⏑− isnot allowed. 21 See the Appendix on the Siloka and Tuṭṭhubha metres in my Outline of the Metres in thePāḷi Canon.2 As with Upajāti the sandhi shows that the two lines were taken together in pronounciation,without a pause at the end of the line.