Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/284

 exactly the same length, enumerates the metres in which the hymns of the Rigveda are composed. It also states for each book the number of verses in each metre as well as the aggregate in all metres. The Anuvākānukramaṇī is a short index containing only about forty verses. It states the initial words of each of the eighty-five anuvākas or lessons into which the Rigveda is divided, and the number of hymns contained in these anuvākas. It further states that the Rigveda contains 1017 hymns (or 1025 according to the Vāshkala recension), 10,580½ verses, 153,826 words, 432,000 syllables, besides some other statistical details. The number of verses given does not exactly tally with various calculations that have recently been made, but the differences are only slight, and may be due to the way in which certain repeated verses were counted by the author of the index.

There is another short index, known as yet only in two MSS., called the Pādānukramaṇī, or "index of lines" (pādas), and composed in the same mixed metre as the others. The Sūktānukramaṇī, which has not survived, and is only known by name, probably consisted only of the initial words (pratīkas) of the hymns. It probably perished because the Sarvānukramaṇī would have rendered such a work superfluous. No MS. of the Devatānukramaṇī or "Index of gods" exists, but ten quotations from it have been preserved by the commentator Shaḍguruçishya. It must have been superseded by the Bṛihaddevatā, an index of the "many gods," a much more extensive work than any of the other Anukramaṇīs, as it contains about 1200 çlokas interspersed with occasional trishṭubhs. It is divided into eight adhyāyas corresponding to the ashṭakas of the Rigveda. Following