Extreme metrical irregularity.—This is more or less a characteristic of all the metrical parts of the Vedic texts outside of the Rig-Veda (and Sama-Veda). In the saṁhitās of the Yajur-Veda, in the Brāhmaṇas, and in the Sūtras, the violations of meter are so common and so pervading that one can only say that meter seemed to be of next to no account in the eyes of the text-makers. It is probable that in the Atharvan saṁhitā the irregular verses outnumber the regular.
Apparent wantonness in the alteration of RV. material.—The corruptions and alterations of Rig-Veda verses recurring in the AV. are often such as to seem downright wanton in their metrical irregularity. The smallest infusion of care as to the metrical form of these verses would have sufficed to prevent their distortion to so inordinate a degree.
To emend this irregularity into regularity is not licit.—In very many cases, one can hardly refrain from suggesting that this or that slight and obvious emendation, especially the omission of an intruded word or the insertion of some brief particle or pronoun, would rectify the meter. It would be a great mistake, however, to carry this process too far, and by changes of order, insertions, and various other changes, to mend irregularity into regularity. The text, as Atharvan, never was metrically regular, nor did its constructors care to have it such; and to make it so would be to distort it.
9. The Divisions of the Text
⌊Summary of the various divisions.—These, in the order of their extent, are: pra-pāṭhakas or 'Vor-lesungen' or 'lectures,' to which there is no corresponding division in the RV.; kāṇḍas or 'books,' answering to the maṇḍalas of the RV.; and then, as in the RV., anu-vākas or 're-citations,' and sūktas or 'hymns,' and ṛcas or 'verses.' The verses of the long hymns are also grouped into 'verse-decads,' corresponding to the vargas of the RV. Besides these divisions, there are recognized also the divisions called artha-sūktas or 'sense-hymns' and paryāya-sūktas or 'period-hymns'; and the subdivisions of the latter are called paryāyas. In the paryāya-hymns, the division into gaṇas (or sometimes daṇḍakas: p. 628) is recognized, and the verses are distinguished as avasānarcas and gaṇāvasānarcas (see p. 472). A great deal of detail concerning the divisions of the books (the later books especially) may be found in the special introductions to the several books.⌋
⌊The first and second and third grand divisions of books i.-xviii.—A critical study of the text reveals the fact that the first eighteen books are divided (see p. xv) into three grand divisions: the first (books i.-vii.) contains the short hymns of miscellaneous subjects; the second (books viii.-xii.) contains the long hymns of miscellaneous subjects; and the
