Indian and Persian Prosody and Recitation is a comparative study of Indo-Aryan and Persian metrical systems and their musical performances, with text and audio samples.

The essays in Part I of this volume survey Persian, Urdu, Hindi and Bengali metres and compare their rhythmic patterns. In addition to offering comparative surveys on Indo-Aryan and Persian metres and their musical and recitational performances, the essays attempt to identify the legacy of traditional Sanskrit-Prakrit-Apabhramsa metre as well as the influence of Perso-Arabic metre in Hindi-Urdu poetry. The papers on Bengali prosody look into its unique path of development between the medieval and modern periods. The musicological papers on Indian and Persian recitation of poetry address the relationship between the linguistic and musical rhythms.

Part II of this book contains actual sample poems using the metres under study, along with prosodic analysis. A CD-ROM of corresponding recordings recited by native speakers comes with the volume.

This book is a product of the three-year international joint research project titled "Rhythmic construction of Hindi and Urdu metre and its origin in Persian prosody" conducted at Osaka University. It is a contribution both to prosody and Indo-Persian poetry.