Sanskrit prosody or chandaśāstra (Devanagari: छन्दशास्त्र) is the study of poetic metres and verse in Sanskrit. The chandas have their own rhythm, movements and aesthetics. Sanskrit metres include those based on a fixed number of syllables per verse, and those based on fixed number of morae per verse.
Every akṣara (syllable) is identified to be either laghu (short) or guru (long) as per the rules of chandaśāstra. Thus, every line of Sanskrit text can be transformed into a binary sequence of laghu and guru markers. Specific patterns of such sequences are identified as various chandas.
Chandojñānam (Devanagari: छन्दोज्ञानम्), the chanda identification system made available hereby has a list of over 200 chandas collated from various sources, most notable among which are vṛttaratnākara and śabdakalpadruma.
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