The program (written in C) identifies laghu/guru mAtrassyllables,
and takes into account the compound-consonant conditions. Initiay
it did not correctly identify the situations given as examples by
Syamala RaoI don't remember the example, but let me give the line
lAvokkintayu lEdu, dhairyamu vilOmbayye, prANambulun ...
Here, the last syllable in "vilOlambayye" is a laghuvu, even though
thfirst syllable in the next word is a compound consonant "prA".
This is becin between the two words, therenaturally occurring
pause, that breaks the conne
To take care of this situation, a special character has tced at
such positions, for the software to properly parse the mAtras. Things
like "/", "\" were proposed, but I suggested a double space between
such wordswhich serves the same purpose, but would be transparent
to the casual reader. He has inrporated this, and it works to
a large extent. Of course one can visualize situations where it can
be tripped. In the famous poem,
akroora varada kESava
cakrAyudha pANi! ....
the fir syllable "a" is a guruvu, because the "kroo" next to it. But
if you use the eigth volong-R, sometimes the preceding laghuvu
stays a laghuvu. The common example given for this is the word "pitRNamu"
(the R should be long, but I forgot the RIT notation for it). There are
times poets exercise their license as per the demands of chandassu.
Having then identified the laghuvu-guruvu sequence of syllables in a line,
it is a simple matter to identify whether the poem is one of the
Gang-of-Fo vRttas (campaka mAla, utpala mAla, mattEbhamu, SArdUlamu)
But any of the other popular meters posemendous challenges. Kandam
with its dozen or so rules, esam, ATaveladi, tETagIti, madhyAkkara -
these have a wide latitude in the allowed gaNas. The program needs to
be quite "intelligent" to identify thes
There can be traps too! Sines of a seesa padyam can be mistaken
for lines from a tETagIti, or ATaveladi. I'll try to come up
with examples later. Of course, these are peculiar circumstances, and
one program need noke care of all eventualities.
This comp/keyboard/modem connection is introducing a lot of glitches.
I'll stop here and resume later.
Ramakrishna