(Curtius, 'Grundzuege,' p. 60.) The fact that the
root _k_hand, in the sense of stepping or striding, has not been fixed
in Sanskrit as a verbal, but only as a nominal base, is no real
objection either. The same thing has happened over and over again, and
has been remarked as the necessary result of the dialectic growth of
language by so ancient a scholar as Yaska. ('Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft, vol. viii. p. 373 seq.) That scandere
in Latin, in the sense of scanning is a late word, does not affect the
question at all. What is of real importance is simply this, that the
principal Aryan nations agree in representing metre as a kind of
stepping or striding. Whether this arose from the fact that ancient
poetry was accompanied by dancing or rhythmic choral movements, is a
question which does not concern us here. (Carmen descindentes
tripodaverunt in verba haec: Enos Lases, etc. Orelli, 'Inscript.' No.
2271.) The fact remains that the people of India, Greece, and Italy
agree in calling the component elements of their verses feet or steps
([Greek: pous], pes, Sanskrit pad or pada; padapankti, a row of
feet, and _g_agati, i. e. andante, are names of Sanskrit metres). It
is not too much, therefore, to say that they may have considered metre
as a kind of stepping or striding, and that they may accordingly have
called it 'stride.' If then we find the name for metre in Sanskrit
_k_handas, i. e. skandas, and if we find that scando in Latin (from
which sca(d)la), as we may gather from ascendo and descendo, meant
originally striding, and that skand in Sanskrit means the same as
scando in Latin, surely there can be little doubt as to the original
intention of the Sanskrit name for metre, viz. _k_handas. Hindu
grammarians derive _k_handas either from _k_had, to cover, or from
_k_had, to please. Both derivations are possible, as far as the
letters are concerned. But are we to accept the dogmatic
interpretation of the theologians of the _K_handogas, who tell us that
the metres were called _k_handas because the gods, when afraid of
death, covered themselves with the metres? Or of the Va_g_asaneyins,
who tell us that the _k_handas were so called because they pleased
Pra_g_apati? Such artificial interpretations only show that the
Brahmans had no traditional feeling as to the etymological meaning of
that word, and that we are at liberty to discover by the ordinary
means its original intention. I shall only mentio