Journal |
Bhasha
Journal issue | 4 | 1 | 2025
Research Article | The Emergence of Rhymed Meters in the Indo-Aryan Prosody
The Emergence of Rhymed Meters in the Indo-Aryan Prosody
Abstract
Indo‑Aryan poetry began to incorporate the end rhyme as an obligatory metrical rule from Apabhraṃśa literature in the eighth century, although the precise reasons for this development remain uncertain. The emergence of the end rhyme is a multifactorial event, influenced by not only phonological but also sociolinguistic factors, such as the impact of more prestigious literary traditions. From a morphophonological perspective, Arjunwadkar suggests that the simpler variations in word endings in later languages facilitated the end rhyme. This paper evaluates his hypothesis by calculating the actual difficulty of rhyming with textual data of Sanskrit, Middle Indo‑Aryan, and New Indo‑Aryan and argues that less difficulty of rhyming in later languages contributed to the adoption of the end rhyme.
Submitted: March 25, 2025 | Accepted: May 7, 2025 | Published July 1, 2025 | Language: en
Keywords Prosody • Apabhramśa • Middle Indo-Aryan • End Rhyme • Phonology
Copyright © 2025 Ryosuke Masaoka. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/bhasha/2785-5953/2025/01/004