(See post for Chapter 1 for context.)

Now let’s turn to “laya” in chandaḥ-śāstras.70 0.104 0.370

(Some places where the term occurs in passing—)

A metre named laya-grāhi, 1.70 0.367 0.602

A metre named laya-grāhi, 2.70 0.600 0.89971 0.105 0.262

A metre named utsāha.71 0.258 0.517

Another example (layottara).71 0.515 0.656

What can we infer from these examples?71 0.652 0.840

The first two are akṣara-vṛtta, and happen to have “samate” even in parts (chunks) of a pāda71 0.837 0.89572 0.109 0.403

The last chunk is shorter than the others; the pause at the end of the pāda will make it equal in duration to the others.72 0.398 0.520

Interesting: and is this really always exactly true? (Anyway it doesn’t affect his point.) Sridatta adds:

you will understand in the later chapters and in the kannaḍa chandassu part there is discussion on ಅಪೂರ್ಣ ತಾಲಖಂಡಗಳು (i.e. ಊನಗಣಗಳು) , ಚತುರಸ್ರತೆ, ತಾಳಖಂಡ/ಆವರ್ತಗಳು ನಾಲ್ಕರ ಗುಣಿತ/multiple ಆಗಿರುತ್ತದೆ and all.

In these two examples, the different chunks shared both the “time to say the chunk” (number of mātrās) and the actual LG pattern. Which one is meant by “laya”?72 0.519 0.680

Example 3. (There’s a typo; third chunk should be LLL, not GLL.)72 0.680 0.91073 0.111 0.194

Example 4. (examine these examples closely) 73 0.194 0.763

These latter two (mātrābandha-s) have only mātrā equality. This establishes what they meant by “laya”.73 0.756 0.94374 0.115 0.175

Why isn’t laya really discussed in the works?74 0.173 0.500

Because those works only aim to define precisely, not to discuss beauty… and laya is not needed for defining a given pattern74 0.510 0.71278 0.113 0.39379 0.106 0.202

Discussed in music/dance.80 0.106 0.388

Start of Footnote 20: Vṛtta and jāti. [This footnote spans 5 pages, and I have marked it more heavily than anything in the main chapter itself…]74 0.699 0.941

[Footnote 20 continued] Vṛtta = the entire GL sequence completely fixed; jāti = fewer things fixed. [Note the footnote within a footnote here!]75 0.141 0.358

[Footnote 20 continued] Vṛtta is not always used carefully in a definite sense…75 0.334 0.438

[Footnote 20 continued] More elaboration on ‘vṛtta’. [Much of it is obvious IMO; some funny criticism of Halayudha.]75 0.418 0.837

[Footnote 20 continued] jāti, simply defined.75 0.817 0.911

[Footnote 20 continued] More on jāti: called so because the similarity is less / is of a generic nature. [Also: “…ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ ಏನೇನೋ ಅನುಮಾನಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ.” :-)]76 0.144 0.702

[Footnote 20 continued] But jāti ≠ mātrābandha. E.g. upajāti!76 0.680 0.908

[Footnote 20, part 2: basically a new footnote] Anuṣṭup an akṣara-jāti. (“ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತವಾಙ್ಮಯದ ಅಧಿಕಭಾಗವನ್ನು ಆಕ್ರಮಿಸಿ ಮೆರೆಯುತ್ತಿರುವ ಅನುಷ್ಟುಪ್ ಶ್ಲೊಕ…”)76 0.884 0.92277 0.129 0.273

[Footnote 20, part 2, continued] How to classify Anuṣṭup77 0.252 0.909

[Footnote 20, part 2, continued] Why (and how) anuṣṭup should be under jāti.78 0.395 0.908

(Repeating from above)78 0.595 0.658

[Start of Footnote 21] Chandaḥ-śāstra’s goal is not to illuminate chando-gati. It isn’t even possible, within scope.79 0.210 0.505

[Footnote 21 continued] Those forms (pada etc) are not both pāṭhya and geya like chandas, only geya.79 0.482 0.711

[Footnote 21 continued] Tāla not mentioned doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply; in fact the opposite is true. All mātrā-bandhas, and most vṛttas, are tāla-baddha / have laya. Not many have noticed this.79 0.686 0.907

[Back to main text] So why mention “laya” at all? Note it is only mentioned in works written in metres, when having to write a few words beyond the definition — not part of the definition itself.80 0.386 0.89081 0.118 0.371

[Footnote 22] Three meanings of laya: (1) equality (2) speed (or equality thereof) (3) other equality/one-ness. For us, only (1) is relevant.81 0.559 0.944

In summary, I think in this chapter the meaning of “laya” was hamerred in again, with a couple of useful illustrative examples. Separately, footnote 20 (really, the footnotes in this book sometimes constitutte a separate book in themselves, that happens to be running parallel to the main book) has a great discussion of vṛtta and jāti. We can say there are degrees of looseness: vṛtta < upajāti < {anuṣṭubh, mātrā-bandhas}. Many authors choose to analyze upajāti as a mixture of two vṛttas, everyone classifies the mātrā-bandhas as jāti, and many are not quite sure what to do about anuṣṭubh. But having seen it clearly like this, we can make up our mind.