the Gîtâ is removed by a considerable linguistic and chronological distance from classical Sanskrit literature. And so far as it goes, this proposition agrees with the result of our investigation of the first branch of internal evidence.
The next branch of that evidence brings us to the character of the versification of the Gîtâ. Here, again, a survey of Sanskrit verse generally, and the verse of the Gîtâ in particular, leads us to a conclusion regarding the position of the Gîtâ in Sanskrit literature, which is in strict accord with the conclusions we have already drawn. In the verse of the Vedic Samhitâs, there is almost nothing like a rigidly fixed scheme of versification, no particular collocation of long and short syllables is absolutely necessary. If we attempt to chant them in the mode in which classical Sanskrit verse is chanted, we invariably come across lines where the chanting cannot be smooth. If we come next to the versification of the Upanishads, we observe some progress made towards such fixity of scheme as we have alluded to above. Though there are still numerous lines, which cannot be smoothly chanted, there are, on the other hand, a not altogether inconsiderable number which can be smoothly chanted. In the Bhagavadgîtâ a still further advance, though a slight one, may, I think, be marked. A visibly larger proportion of the stanzas in the Gîtâ conform to the metrical schemes as laid down by the writers on prosody, though there are still sundry verses which do not so conform, and cannot, accordingly, be chanted in the regular way. Lastly, we come to the Kâvyas and Nâtakas--the classical literature. And here in practice we find everywhere a most inflexible rigidity of scheme, while the theory is laid down in a rule which says, that 'even mâsha may be changed to masha, but a break of metre should be avoided.' This survey of Sanskrit verse may, I think, be fairly treated as showing, that adhesion to the metrical schemes is one test of the chronological position of a work--the later the work, the more undeviating is such adhesion. I need not stay here to point out, how this view receives corroboration from the rules given on this subject in the standard work
