Prior to the study of the Vedas, the ancient student had to undergo the study of phonetics and pronunciation and this is being explained here as three phrases….

1. varnah svarah – I have explained at length above that varnah relates to more than just sound – it refers also to units of classification and colour. However, this sūtra explains that it is restricting itself here to the purest of phonemes viz. the svars. The latter have been discussed above and we have shown them to be 13 at first count.
2. mātrā balam – The first word mātrā literally means ‘meter’ or the measure of time taken in annunciating a letter. The accent or the stress is the balam which essentially gives strength to the chanting of the shlökas or mantrās . How does this come about ?

The vowels, svars alone carry the ‘meter’ and they are of three types – short vowels, hrasva ; long vowels, dīrgha and prolongated vowels, pluta. This creates an exhaustive list of 23 vowels as follows :-

â, î, û, r, l, e, ô (A¸ [ ¸ ] ¸ ? ¸ ; ¸ e ¸ Aao) are short.