- Tristubh
"Tristubh" is the name of a
Vedic meter of 44 syllables (fourpada s of eleven syllables each), or any hymn composed in this meter. It is the most prevalent meter of theRigveda , accounting for roughly 40% of its verses.The tristubh pada contains a "break" or caesura, after either four or five syllables, necessarily at a word-boundary and if possible at a syntactic break, followed by either three or two short syllables. The final four syllables form a
trochaic cadence. For exampleRV 2 .3.1::a "IAST|sámiddho agnír níhitaḥ pṛthivyâm":b "IAST|pratyáṅ víśvāni bhúvanāniy asthāt":c "IAST|hótā pāvakáḥ pradívaḥ sumedhâ":d "IAST|devó devân yajatuv agnír árhan":"Agni is set upon the earth well kindled / he standeth in the presence of all beings. / Wise, ancient, God, the Priest and Purifier / let Agni serve the Gods for he is worthy." (trans. Griffith; note that the translator attempts to imitate the meter in English)Is to be read metrically as:a ˘¯¯¯¯/˘˘|¯˘¯x:b ¯¯¯¯˘/˘˘|¯˘¯x:c ¯¯˘¯¯/˘˘|¯˘¯x:d ¯¯¯¯/˘˘˘|¯˘¯xwith / marking the caesura and | separating the cadence::a "IAST|sámiddho agnír / níhi|taḥ pṛthivyâm":b "IAST|pratyáṅ víśvāni / bhúva|nāni asthāt":c "IAST|hótā pāvakáḥ / pradí|vaḥ sumedhâ":d "IAST|devó devân / yajatu | agnír árhan"
The
Avesta has a parallel stanza of 4x11 syllables with a caesura after the fourth syllable.Tristubh verses are also used in later literature, its archaic associations used to press home a "Vedic" character of the poetry. The
Bhagavad Gita , while mostly composed in Anustubhs ("shloka s") is interspersed with Tristubhs, for example in the passage beginning at chapter 11, verse 15, whenArjuna begins speaking in Tristubhs.
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