A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter C

Chandas

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The metrical structure of Vedic hymns, governing rhythm and sound patterns essential to their sacred power and efficacy.

Detailed Definition
Chandas in poetry is the invisible architecture of sacred utterance—the rhythm that makes words more than meaning, turning language into vibration. Poets honor it as the breath of the divine, where meter is not artifice but alignment. In Sanskrit verse, each syllable’s weight becomes a mantra’s pulse, binding sound to spirit, making recitation a ritual of cosmic resonance.
Example
Example in poetry:
A Vedic hymn: "Gayatri’s feet—24 steps / of Chandas, rhythm of sun, / order in sound"; A classical verse: "Chandas binds word to breath—/ meter as mantra, / sound as sacrifice"; A modern lyric: "Free verse rebels—/ but Chandas whispers: ‘Even / chaos needs pulse’"; A haiku: "Syllables counted—/ Chandas: the skeleton / of sacred song"; Another: "In Chandas, every beat / is a bow to the gods—/ structure as devotion"; A minimalist verse: "Long. Short. Long. / Chandas: cosmic / heartbeat."
Additional Notes
Chandas governs Vedic hymn power: meter is not poetic choice but cosmic law; mispronounced meter nullifies ritual—this makes Vedic poetry inseparable from phonetic precision, demanding that students approach it as sonic ritual, not literary art; its influence persists in modern Sanskrit verse, where rhythm carries sacred weight, making meter a form of prayer.
Also Known As
Vedic Meter Meter of the Vedas Prosody
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