काव्यम्
Sanskrit Poems — Structure & Examples
Classical Sanskrit poetry (काव्य, kāvya) is built on strict metrical rules (छन्दस्, chandas) and rich ornamentation (अलङ्कार, alaṅkāra) — sound and sense working together deliberately.
The building block: Chandas (meter)
Unlike English poetry's stress-based meter, Sanskrit meter counts syllable length — light (laghu) and heavy (guru) — in fixed patterns. The Anushtubh meter (8 syllables × 4 quarters = the Shloka form) is the most common; the Bhagavad Gita is written almost entirely in it.
A short example
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि। तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही॥
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi, tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī
As a person casts off worn-out garments and takes new ones, so the embodied self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others that are new.
Alankara — poetic ornamentation
Classical Sanskrit poetics identifies dozens of named devices: Upama (simile — "as," "like"), Rupaka (metaphor), Anuprasa (alliteration), and Yamaka (repeated sound patterns), among many others. The verse above uses Upama, comparing the soul changing bodies to a person changing clothes.
Related pages
See our Sanskrit Shlok collection for more verses, Subhashita for shorter wisdom sayings, or our dedicated Sanskrit Poetic Meters guide for a full deep-dive into how Chandas itself works — laghu/guru rules, the gana system, and how to scan a verse.
Other classical meters
Anushtubh isn't the only meter — Sanskrit poetry uses dozens, each with a fixed syllable pattern.
Anushtubh (Shloka)
32 syllables (8×4) — the most common narrative meter; most of the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Trishtubh
44 syllables (11×4) — a common Vedic meter, frequent in the Rigveda.
Gayatri
24 syllables (8×3) — the meter of the Gayatri Mantra itself, among the oldest Vedic forms.
Vasantatilaka
56 syllables (14×4) — a longer, more ornate meter favoured in classical Kavya poetry.
A second example: the Gayatri meter
ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः। तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं। भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि। धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्॥
oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ, tat savitur vareṇyaṃ, bhargo devasya dhīmahi, dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt
We meditate upon the divine radiance of Savitṛ; may that light inspire and guide our intellect.
Notice how much shorter this is than the Anushtubh example above — Gayatri's three lines of eight syllables each (24 total) make it the most compact of the classical Vedic meters, one reason it's so widely memorised and recited daily.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count syllable weight (laghu/guru) in a line?
A syllable is heavy (guru) if it has a long vowel, is followed by a conjunct consonant, or ends the line; otherwise it's light (laghu). Meter identification comes from matching a line's laghu-guru pattern against known meter templates.
Is Sanskrit meter based on rhyme, like English poetry?
No — classical Sanskrit meter is based purely on syllable count and weight pattern, not rhyme or stress. Rhyme isn't a structural requirement in classical Kavya the way it often is in English verse.
What's the difference between Chandas and Alankara?
Chandas is the metrical skeleton (the syllable-pattern rules); Alankara is the poetic ornamentation layered onto that skeleton (simile, metaphor, alliteration, and similar devices) — meter and decoration are two separate, complementary systems.